Will of Fire & Ice
by Timmy811
Summary: While on a trip to investigate the chaos enveloping the Land of Water, Jiraiya comes across a small boy, the last of his clan. He takes him on as his apprentice and hands down to him the Will of Fire that has burned in Konoha since its founding. Minato and Nagato were both great ninja, destined for tragedy; as Jiraiya's student, will Haku follow their path or carve out his own?
1. Water on the Rocks

Jiraiya trudged through the muddy slums of Gunkou, a squalid port town on the east coast of the Land of Water. A cold wet wind, heavy with the scent of salt blew in from the sea, down rutted streets lined with trash, doing little to wash away the stench. Today the Toad Sage looked like any other middle aged dock worker, wearing poorly patched clothes, and long gray hair, his face worn by years of hard work by the sea. It was the best kind of transformation, the kind that could be worn for days without effort, one that didn't change things too much and simply worked around his large frame and long hair.

Jiraiya didn't have to work at matching the grim expressions of the other men on the street, what he'd seen would put a scowl on the most cheerful man's face. The Land of Water was in chaos, seething with civil war, ethnic violence and barely constrained anarchy. 'How did this happen?' Jirayia wondered. 'The Mizukage, Yagura…well, he's always been brutal under that calm, diplomatic facade,' he thought, mulling over his few interactions with the man. 'Saurtobi sensei always said that "murderous currents run deep in Kiri, always waiting to pull the unsuspecting underneath the placid surface."'

But that brutality wasn't what bothered Jiraiya, 'Bloodthirsty Yagura may have been, but he'd always been rational, a keen planer, able to steer the ship of state through shoals and keep her off the rocks.' Jiraiya knew that he'd never meet that man again. 'That Yagura is already a fading memory, he seems to have completely snapped and is now intent on driving that ship against a cliff. Madness like this, sudden and overwhelming, that's not natural,' Jiraiya thought, 'not without warning.'

He was at a loss to explain it though, 'his control of the Three Tailed Turtle is legendary, and he earned his Kage title with more than raw power; if not the beast, then who or what could be responsible?' He shook his head in disgust, 'It doesn't matter, I can't do anything about it here. I have to get back to Konoha and tell the Hokage what I've seen.'

There was much to say, and none of it good. Just thinking of it made him glower, 'two rebel factions with armies in the field, fighting each other as much as the Mizukage, while the Land of Water burns as mobs whipped up by Yagura try to purge the nation of its so called Bloodline curse.' The situation couldn't get much worse in his opinion, 'this whole country is a Gods damned disaster, bound to suck us and Cloud into it and start another Shinobi World War.'

The dreary weather and overcast sky fit his mood to a T, though the snow falling in the alley to his right was a bit too white to match the dank grimness of the rest of the city. He lurched to a halt, 'Snow? It's not that cold!' he thought incredulously, 'And in just one alley?'

The Toad Sage leaned back, cracking his neck and rubbing it with his left hand as he surreptitiously checked the main road. It was lightly traveled, most men were already down on the docks, hard at work. Those few still in the street were in a hurry, and didn't look the sort to be overly curious of a man taking a turn into a side alley. Curiosity could be bad for one's health in a town like this, especially in times like these. Their eyes just slid over and away from each other, they didn't even see their own countrymen, let alone Jiraiya. They were nothing more than they looked, hard bitten working men, so Jiraiya walked into the alleyway like he had every right to be there.

Five handseals later and a subtle illusion settled over the mouth of the alley, anyone looking down it now would see the overcast gloom they saw everywhere else. He walked past a rusting dumpster and found a small boy huddled against it out of the wind. Uneven black hair hung just short of his shoulders, he was brown eyed and pale skinned like many from the mountains of the main island, he somehow managed to be cute despite the crippling aura of despair that surrounded him. 'Poor kid can't be more than six, maybe seven years old,' Jiraiya thought with sympathy. 'No parents for sure, not with him looking like that,' what with his soot stained face, ragged clothes and a thinness that was just beginning to go beyond slender into the realm of starvation. 'Lost to Yagura's madness and a century of simmering resentment against Kiri's bloodline clans', Jiraiya thought in disgust, as snowflakes thick and wet fell down, those that stuck to his skin giving him a fleeting sense of the boy's chakra. It felt pure.

Hyōton, the Ice Release bloodline of the Yuki Clan, Jiraiya had seen it in action in the Third Shinobi World War. It was a devastating close combat bloodline, but it had been rare. In fear of their power most of the other ninja clans of the Land of Water had warred against them before the foundation of Kiri. The boy must have the talent incredibly strongly to express it so at his age. 'I wonder if he's the only left,' Jiraiya thought somberly. It was a terrible thought to have, especially so for likely being right on the mark.

The boy looked up at him. Those eyes, they were without guile, but they'd seen far too much. There was a tired sadness to them, and an acceptance. An acceptance of whatever was about to come his way. 'Damn, this kid's even more pitiful than those orphans in Rain,' Jiraiya thought, memories of frightened children, pouring rain and Orochimaru's venomous whispers bubbling up through his subconscious.

"Well I couldn't leave them, and I can't leave you either," he said, reaching out an open hand to the boy, "someone less friendly than me is bound to notice that snow sooner or later." The boy looked at the hand curiously, like he didn't know what it was. Then he smiled a wide gap toothed smile that lit up his face and brought back life to his eyes. He reached out a small hand lined with dirt and took hold of Jiraiya's. It seemed swallowed up in the man's larger hand. The Toad Sage smiled back at the boy and pulled him up. "So kid, you got a name?" he asked.

"Haku," the boy said softly, looking up at Jiraiya "my name is Haku."

"Haku huh," Jiraiya grunted in surprise "I couldn't think of a better name myself" He continued on to himself, 'Yuki Haku, pure white snow.' He wondered, 'with a name like that, could he be the chosen child?' He gave a little shake of his head, dismissing the thought 'there'll be time for philosophy later'. He looked down at the boy, "You hungry kid?"

Haku nodded, his smile turning shy.

"Ok, then Haku. How about we go get some lunch and get you cleaned up. After that I'll hire a boat, and take you away from this place. How does that sound to you?" he asked.

"It sounds good," the boy answered, then he hesitated and asked "what happens after that?"

"We travel the world Haku, and I train you as my apprentice," he replied, boasting "When I'm done with you, everyone in the Elemental countries will know your name!"

The boy smiled again, and this time the snow stopped falling.


	2. Ringers

Eight Years Later

The walls of Konoha loomed large, towering into the sky like the cliffs of Suna. They never failed to impress, no matter how many other cities and hidden villages Haku visited. This would be the first time that he would be entering through the front gate however. Traveling with Jiraiya, meant taking the road less traveled, even if it was leading home. As the man in charge of an extensive spy ring, with contacts across the continent, he tried to keep his infrequent visits under wraps. That was a policy that for the time being would be coming to an end. In Jiraiya's words "there are times when you need to be seen, it gives the illusion you're on top of things."

Haku had only been to the Leaf village a handful of times, but he loved it all the same. It was beloved by Jiraiya, and thus he couldn't help but love it himself. Jiraiya had saved him, not just from death, but from irrelevance and despair. He had given him a life of purpose and laughter. There was more to it than that though; there was a prosperous harmony to the village that most others lacked. Oh there was a darkness underneath the surface, there was in every ninja village, but Konoha didn't let the darkness spill out into the light. It was a place that Haku could love in its own right.

The chunin gate guards straightened noticeably as Haku and his master walked up to their post. The guards were in their early to mid twenties, and didn't seem especially noteworthy. The way they moved and held themselves spoke of average ability for their rank. One had a shock of hair hanging down that covered half his face, while the other had an odd bandage crossing his face across the bridge of his nose. Haku grinned, it always amused him that such personal quirks among shinobi were common. 'After all', he thought 'when you can look like anyone at any time with the art of transformation, dressing outrageously doesn't do anything to impair the performance of one's duties.' He continued to himself introspectively, 'and it's also a way of asserting that we aren't just faceless tools, for no matter what shinobi say, we are still human beings.'

"Lord Jiraiya, welcome back to Konoha!" said the man with the bandage, an excited smile on his face. "It's been too long."

"Have you come for the Chunin exam?" asked his partner, eying Haku speculatively.

"Got it one Izumo." Jiraiya replied with a hearty laugh. He slapped a hand down on Haku's shoulder and said, "My apprentice here is still technically a genin, so I thought it'd be fun for him to compete."

Haku looked up at Jirayia, who still over topped him by a good thirty centimeters, and raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh? I thought you told me that you were going to ask the Hokage to promote me straight to Special Jonin." Out of the corner of his eye he could see the guards exchange interested looks at that bit of news.

Jiraiya smiled that wide grin of his down at him, "I will, provided you do well in the exam, as I'm sure you will. It will be better for the village this way," he continued. "Shinobi do their best work in secret, but our clients only buy what they can see so you gotta give them a good show to drum up business."

"I suppose that makes sense," Haku replied dubiously, thinking 'things are rarely so simple with sensei, there's probably some foreign genin he wants information on participating in this year's exam.'

"Anyways, I'm a busy man, have to go see the Hokage and then my publisher. Keep an eye out for my new book boys, it's a doozy!" He winked at the guards and then squeezed Haku's shoulder and they flickered away, leaving a swirl of leaves and dust.

Kotetsu looked over at Izumo and smirked, "I know who I'm putting my money on."

Izumo rolled his eyes in exasperation, "You and everyone else. Lord Jiraiya trained the 4th! Any kid he enters the exam to make a splash in front of the masses has got to be a badass. To get good odds you'll have to take him against the field."

"I just might do that Izumo," Kotetsu replied, mulling it over "I just might do that."

* * *

They flickered into being on top of a supermarket a kilometer into the village and roof hopped the rest of the way to the Hokage's tower. Using the body flicker to reach that far would have cost a fair amount of chakra and drawn unwanted attention. ANBU could be twitchy about people popping in unannounced, and it was always embarrassing for them when they attacked out of reflex and then got manhandeled by the Toad Sage. Much better for both parties for visitors to be seen aproaching; unless of course the visit was supposed to be secret, then a few ANBU egos would just have to be sacrificed.

The village looked properosus as usual. Haku could see people packing the streets, happily going to and fro from one errand to the next. There was no signs of hunger or despair, like in so many other cities of the world that he saw with Jiraiya. 'It feels good to come home,' he thought with elation. 'This time I'm here to stay, ready and strong enough to protect Sensei's dream with my own two hands, in my own right.'

He followed Jiraiya up the tower in a few leaps and bounds, and entered after him through the open bay window. "Sensei!" Jiraiya crowed as he jumped in, "The great Toad Sage has returned to bless the Hidden Leaf Village with his latest disciple!" Turning in the air, he landed knees bent, arms outstretched and pointing at Haku as he climbed quietly through the red trimmed window.

Haku rolled his eyes at the display, but the Hokage seemed amused by it, a small smile on his lined face, no doubt reminiscing of bygone days. "My you've grown Haku, and not just in stature if Jiraiya's reports are accurate. From what he says you've become quite the shinobi". The Hokage spoke with a grandfatherly tone, soothing enough to almost make you forget who he was and what he was capable of. He may have looked old with his gray beard turning white, and his body not quite filling out his uniform like it had when he was young, but he was still one of the most dangerous men in the world.

"Sensei sings my praises too highly Lord Hokage," Haku answered ruefully, "I fear I have much yet to learn before becoming worthy of being spoken of in the same breath as him and his previous students."

"Humble as ever, I don't know how you manage it being around Jiraiya so much." The Hokage shook his head in wonder, "It's good to have high standards though, it gives one something to continually strive for."

"Let's not look too far ahead though," Jiraiya interjected. "All he needs to strive for right now is a successful completion of the chunin exam".

"My modesty has its limits Sensei, if the genin I've encountered before are representative, I doubt I'll have to strive too much." Haku replied, a touch of pique in is voice.

"You'd be surprised," the Hokage said dryly. "There is going to be some uniquely dangerous competition this year."

Haku cocked his head slightly at that, it seemed he was right; Jiraiya was interested in another participant.

"So, have you managed to scrape up two other genin for Haku to take the exam with?" Jiraiya asked.

"Turned out not to be necessary", the Hokage said, thumbing tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. "Team Ten ran into a chunin from Cloud turned rouge on their last C class mission. They beat him, but Choji Akimichi ended up getting poisoned. The small dose and his own mass kept it from being fatal, but he'll be out of action for the next week while he recovers." With a snap of his fingers he produced a spark and lit up his pipe. "Seeing as they did so well against that missing nin, it'd be a shame for them to have sit out the exam." He puffed on his pipe.

"The Yamanaka and Nara clan heirs, eh. Much better than I was expecting." Jiraiya said with a smile, "much better."

"I'd be honored to be their third man, Lord Hokage," Haku said, becoming more interested. He hadn't had much chance to interact with the younger generation or the great ninja clans that dominated the village. He knew of them of course, and had an idea what they were capable of, but he'd actually met more foreign shinobi of famous family lines then Konoha ninja.

"Splendid!" The Hokage said happily. Then his smile faded a little and he added, "Now, I must warn you, talented as they are, they are just rookies. We have quite a few rookies participating this time around and eight are the children of clan heads, five of them heirs and two others have already succeeded to that position."

Haku raised an eyebrow in surprise, "that's more than a little unusual isn't it?"

"Quite," the Hokage nodded, "and our enemies and our allies for that matter may try to take advantage of it." He elaborated, "the Sand have been falling behind, they fear becoming just another client village like Hidden Waterfall. Now given their intrinsic geographic advantages, I don't think that's a realistic fear for it would be impossible for outsiders to keep control of the Land of Wind in the long term. But nevertheless they fear it and frightened people do desperate things."

"And is this dangerous competitor you spoke of earlier one of these desperate measures?" Haku asked, beginning to piece things together. With all these political currents bubbling underneath the surface it seemed he really was here for more than the exam itself.

The Hokage's head tilted back in acknowledgment and a little surprise. "Yes, he is. Do you know what a jinchuriki is?" he asked the boy.

"Yes, Sensei covered them in my lessons." Haku answered with a sinking feeling, "Yagura and Killer Bee are famous examples. Then this Sand genin, he is…" he trailed off in a melancholy tone. The power of the jinchuriki was incredibly dangerous, but even more so than that it was incredibly sad. As bloodstained and cruel as the ninja world was, Haku could think of few things that could compare to sealing an eldritch abomination within a small child.

"Yes, the Kazekage's youngest son and vessel for Shukaku, the One Tailed Tanuki." The Hokage grimly stated.

"He's crazier than a shithouse rat!" Jiraiya interjected. "Way more bloodthirsty than Yagura ever was and more mentally unstable than Uchiha Itachi!"

"Well that's not good," Haku quipped with droll understatement. "Do you want me take care of him?" he asked.

"Gaara might be a little out of your league just yet Haku," Jaraiya said with a good natured chuckle, "not saying you couldn't beat him, but you'd have to have luck on your side."

"A shinobi with guts and the will to endure makes his own luck, isn't that what you always say Sensei?" Haku said with a wry smile.

"Ha, you're getting too clever for your own good kid." Jiraiya answered with a broad grin, reaching down to ruffle his hair. "Just trust me on this one, this is one ninja you just don't want to mess with."

"Then what exactly is it you want me to do?" Haku asked with a bit of confusion, "It's obvious I'm here for more than just the exam. Do you just want me to safeguard the Yamanaka and Nara from this character and make sure they make it to the finals?" It seemed a little too simple to Haku.

"Do you know the Shadow Clone technique?" the Hokage asked, seemingly changing the subject.

"Yes, but I don't use it often because of the chakra cost," Haku explained. "I can freeze my Water Clones solid, making them much more durable and stronger than anyone else's, so I just use Shadow Clones for recon in dangerous situations." 'Ah!', he thought, eyes brightening with understanding. 'Is that what he wants? It's a bit obvious now that I've thought of it'. "Do you wish me to shadow Gaara through the survival test and intervene if he attacks some of the rookies?"

"Not quite," the Hokage said. "But not too far off either," he praised. "You've trained the boy well Jiraiya." The old man took a long hit on his pipe and then exhaled, the smoke drifting away in fanciful spirals. He looked weary to Haku, as if he'd carried a heavy burden far too long and had no choice but to continue on. He focused back on Haku, "We're not just worried about Gaara. You see it's not outside the realm of possibility for some of the other villages to try to enter someone of your caliber into the exam in order to assassinate a few of the up and coming clan heirs." He elaborated, waving his pipe through the air, "It would cause significant strain to our relations, but it would be difficult to prove that the killer was a ringer, especially if he or she's young enough that they could plausibly have been denied an internal promotion up to this point."

"What we want is to avoid a repeat of the Hyuga incident." Jiraiya interrupted to the Hokage's annoyance, "the world's far too unsettled right now for war to be casually contemplated. Things are roiling beneath the surface that I don't understand, but whatever they are can only mean ill," he said ominously.

"So, you want me to have my clones shadow the other rookies then, and intervene if they get in over their head?" Haku asked.

"Exactly," the Hokage said, punctuating his statement with a jab of his pipe. "Jiraiya's told me a great deal of your ice mirrors and the space-time technique you developed for them. With them it should be possible for you to quickly teleport to their aid, should it not?"

"My range is limited to about five hundred meters, but I can just create new mirrors as soon as I exit and chain them together to form an ice road so to speak," Haku explained. "It wouldn't be instant, but I'll able to get there just a few seconds after my clone dispels."

The Hokage bobbed his head at that, "That should be good enough." He picked up four manila folders from his desk and handed them over to Jiraiya's apprentice. "These contain your orders in more detail and hold the dossiers for your team, who you'll be meeting tomorrow at training ground six at 7:00 am," he explained. "They also hold the files for the other two rookie teams, and of Gaara and everything we know about his abilities and those of previous Shukaku hosts. Do you have any questions about your assignment."

Haku took the files and wordlessly flipped each open to the front, looking at the photos tapped to the inside of the covers. They looked like normal kids, but 'Team 8 might cause a problem' he thought. "I can keep upwind of the Inuzuka, but one of his teammate's a Hyuga, she's going to know I'm following her. The Aburame's kikaichū might be able to detect me as well. I assume you're going to inform them about me?"

The Third nodded, "We'll let Hinata know just enough that she won't have her team set an ambush for you. She'll probably think it's favoritism on behalf of the Hyuga, but she won't complain even though she'll be embarrassed by it." He went on, "Shino shouldn't be a problem either, he's a very dutiful boy and good at seeing underneath, the underneath. One word to him from me and that'll be enough."

"Alright then, I'll go over this material in depth and get back to you if I have any more concerns." Haku said flipping the folders shut. "I'll be at your estate Sensei, should I expect you for dinner or will you be out…late?" he asked euphemistically.

"Don't worry about me son, I'll be out all night conducting research for my next novel!" Jariaya answered with that leering smirk of his that just screamed pervert to anyone who looked at him.

"Right…," Haku drawled in response. "By your leave Lord Hokage," he said bowing, and then flickered away.


	3. Situational Awareness

The sun shone down on training ground six, illuminating a beautiful early summer morning. The grass was green, birds were singing, the flowers were blooming and Nara Shikamaru was bitching. Head pressed all the way back against the old wooden post he was leaning against, he let out a jaw cracking yawn, "Auhhh…Why the hell are we here this early?" Looking up at the sky he shaded his eyes, 'No clouds in the sky, what a horrible day.'

"We're here because Asuma sensei ordered us to be here, and that's good enough." Ino said, glaring at Shikamaru as she stepped around a mud soaked puddle and vaulted up to sit on top of the post next to his. "Can't you just stop moaning for once and get on with your life?" she asked shaking her head, long blonde ponytail waving in the breeze.

Shikamaru eyed the puddle suspiciously, 'it hasn't rained in weeks, where did that come from?' he wondered. "Well, where is he then?" he asked, kicking a stone over at the puddle and sounding more like a grumpy old man than a boy who was three months short of thirteen.

"How should I kno…Woah!" Ino yelled as a hand reached out of the puddle to catch the stone. Even before the word was out of her mouth she had jumped down behind her post and whipped out a kunai, pointing it at the young man who was pulling himself out of a pool of water that looked no more than half a meter across and a few centimeters deep. The only visible weapon he carried was a wakizashi he wore on his hip. He was a head taller than them and two or three years older, wearing a dark aquamarine yukata patterned with dark blue snowflakes. He had two long tails of straight black hair framing his face, parted by a Leaf forehead protector. It was a handsome face, perfectly symmetrical and bordering on feminine. 'I almost hope this guy is up to no good, so we can capture or kill him', Shikamaru thought, 'otherwise Ino is going to be beyond troublesome with a guy like this to moon over.'

"You're not Asuma," Shikamaru said bluntly, gathering his shadow at his feet, connecting it to the shadow at the base of his post and then to the base of the next, ready to strike and bind if the stranger was hostile. "Who are you, and what you doing here?" he demanded.

"A little paranoid, are you not?" the young man asked in a voice with a soothing soft quality to it. "Not surprising from someone who noticed that puddle shouldn't have been there. You have good instincts," he said as he slowly pulled a scroll from his sleeve and tossed it over to Shikamaru. "You'll find the answers to your questions in there. My name is Haku, and I'll be your teammate until Choji recovers."

"I'm not taking my eyes off you to read this unless you're under control of my binding technique." Shikarmaru said cautiously.

"Be my guest" Haku said with a smile, "I think I'm going to enjoy working with you."

Shikamaru narrowed his eyes, and made the sign of the Rat, his shadow lashing out to merge with Haku's. He unfurled the scroll and began reading, while the young man across from him pantomimed his actions. "Geez, looks like everything here is in order, signed and stamped by Asuma sensei and the Hokage himself." The boy grimaced, "Man, we're going to have to compete in the Chunin Exam after all, what a drag!" And with that he let his shadows go.

"Huh, I thought we couldn't take it without Choji," Ino said looking over at him.

"In cases were a teammate's been injured, or promoted ahead of his comrades, another genin can be used as a substitute," Haku interjected. "It happens all the time. Don't worry, even if you two get promoted, Team 10 will still stay together. They won't break up the new Ino-Shika-Cho."

"Oh, well that sounds okay then," Ino replied. "You seem to know a bit about us, but we don't know anything about you. How about you tell us about yourself? We're going to be working closely together after all." She said coly, a light blush rising in her cheeks.

Shikamaru felt a migraine coming on, 'She's looking at him just like she does at Sasuke. Man, I wish I could just refuse to take this test, but then she'd make my life a living hell.'

"I suppose that's fair," Haku said sitting cross legged in front of them, waving them down to do the same. He looked surprisingly dry for someone who had just climbed out of a puddle. "As I said before, my name is Haku, and I was born in the mountains of the Land of Water, the last scion of an ancient shinobi clan, the Yuki."

'A foreigner, how troublesome' Shikamaru grumped to himself.

Haku went on, "The Land of Water is not well known in the Land of Fire, but I'm sure you know that land is wracked by war and by hatred." His eyes were looking beyond them now, into a dark past that only he can see. It was a look that every ninja recognized, and even Shikarmaru had to admit feeling some sympathy for him. "I won't trouble you with the details, but it suffices to say that at the age of seven I ended up on the street, awaiting death by starvation at best."

Ino looked totally enraptured by the tale. 'Asuma's going to pay for this, pay for this dearly,' Shikamaru thought, letting his mind drift to plots of petty revenge while keeping an ear open for anything important.

"It was at that time that Jiraiya, of the Legendary Three came across me," Haku continued. "He took pity upon me and adopted me as his ward, training me these last eight years as his apprentice."

"Wait a minute!" Shikamaru interrupted, jolted out of daydreams of tricking Asuma into paying for an Akimichi clan banquet. "You've been trained that long by Lord Jiraiya and you're still only a genin?" he asked, skepticism tingeing his voice.

"Lord Jiraiya spends most of his time outside of the village, and where he goes I go. I just haven't had the opportunity to take the exam yet." Haku explained.

"So how strong are you then?" Ino asked eagerly, leaning forward and drinking in the sight of him.

"I have an advanced chakra nature bloodline called Hyōton." He held out his hands, summoning a swirling vortex of wind in one hand and reaching out to the puddle beside him with the other, skimming it across the surface, pulling up a fat globule of water bigger than his fist. "I have instinctual control over water and wind, which I can use to make ice," he demonstrated it by putting his two hands together and freezing the sphere of water solid.

"Wow, that's amazing Haku!" Ino gushed, clapping her hands together.

The apprentice of the Toad Sage lifted an eyebrow at the familiar tone and forged on, "I haven't developed my Wind affinity much yet, but my mastery of Water and Ice ninjutsu is acceptable."

"That's rather vague," Shikamaru pointed out, "acceptable by whose standards?"

"By my master Jiraiya's," Haku replied. "I've trained with him so much I don't really have any other solid standard of reference."

"Really!?" Ino squawked in unfeigned amazement.

"Lord Jiraiya is as strong as a Kage!" Shikamaru objected, staring at him. 'Is this kid for real?' he asked himself. 'If he can really throw around ninjutsu of that level maybe this exam won't be so troublesome after all.'

Haku took the objection in stride, "And he demands nothing less from his students. I don't think I'll ever match what he's told me of the Fourth Hokage, or Nagato the orphan from Rain, but I won't shame him either."

'Who the hell is Nagato?' Shikamaru wondered, then disregarded it as irrelevant for the moment. "I suppose it's to be expected, what with a bloodline and training from Lord Jiraiya," he conceded. "After all, I was the one who doubted you could be a genin. Any other…notable abilities?" he asked dryly.

"Sensei says my handsigns are more efficient than anyone he's ever seen." Haku paused a moment, while Shikamaru shot him another incredulous look at that claim. Then he continued, "Shizune, the apprentice of Princess Tsunade, taught my quite a bit of anatomy, first aid, acupuncture and herbalism, so if one of you gets hurt I can offer some help. I don't know any medical ninjutsu though, we didn't have time for that. Aside from that, I suppose I'm pretty fast for my age." Tilting his head in thought he went on, "My taijutsu, genjutsu and other skills and abilities aren't anything special, about the level expected of a solid chunin."

Shaking his head as if he didn't quite believe what he was hearing, Shikamaru said "Well seeing as we're going to be going up against genin in this exam, that should be more than enough."

"Eh," Haku made a noncommittal noise before going on "I hear the Kazekage's children are going to be participating. They're supposed to be pretty good. Don't worry about it though, if they bother us I'll take care of them."

Shikamaru wasn't quite sure why, but he just knew that statement bolded ill. 'Pretty good,' it had the air of understatement to it. 'Looks like this exam is going to be troublesome after all.

"With you on our team our success is assured," Ino insisted. Then she followed up with, "Now that we know about you, you should know more about us."

Shikamaru leaned back against his post, tuned Ino out and looked up at the cloudless sky in disgust. 'It's going to be a long day until 4 pm'.

* * *

Team Ten strolled up to the main gate of the academy complex which had been cleared out for today's Exam. They were coming from a late lunch at Shikamaru's house. His mother was a good cook and a rather…forceful woman in Haku's opinion. It was his father that was really interesting though. 'That man is sharp. I'm sure he saw through the real reason I'm here. He wasn't even subtle about it, asking me to take care of them like that,' he thought in annoyance. 'The way his son twitched in response means he understood it was much more than a parental platitude.' He considered it further and then decided that could be to the boy's benefit, 'It means he'll take things seriously.'

The girl on the other hand was chattering away, sending him flirtatious glances. She was a typical genin kunoichi. Compared to the women that Sensei had thrown at him in the last year she was a complete amateur. It was a good thing she was still twelve, she would obviously grow up into a stunningly beautiful woman and if she was just two years older he'd have to add Jiraiya to the list of those he'd have to protect her from.

"So you guys decided to show up after all," Sarutobi Asuma drawled from his position leaning against the wall next to the main gate. He took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke with pleasure.

"As if we had much of a choice," complained Shikamaru.

"Stop whining Shika!" Ino commanded, slapping him upside the back of the head. "We would have passed this exam with Choji, and we're going to absolutely dominate it now that Haku's on our team!" she declared fist held up, vibrating with intense conviction.

"That's the attitude Ino! You guys stay confident, stay cautious and know thyself and you will be able to overcome any obstacles." Asuma's voice, the tenor and the way he said it made such maudlin sentiments sound deep, and as he was patting his genin on the back and waving them through the gate, he glanced over Haku's way. Just a short look, but that's all he needed to communicate a message of confidence in him. Haku nodded back, 'there's no way I'm going to fail this mission.'

He followed Ino and Shikamaru through the gate and then jogged past his partners to take the lead. Then rather than going through the door of the building assigned he started to walk up its gray concrete wall.

"What are you doing?" Ino asked in confusion.

"There's probably obstacles in there to weed out the hopeless cases right off the bat, so instead of jumping through their hoops we might as well head straight to the third floor," he told her.

"That makes sense," the blonde girl said following him up, as Shikamaru took up the rear grumbling his favorite word under his breath

He tried to slide open a window but it wouldn't budge. 'What's the point of locking it?' he thought, grimacing in annoyance, 'Any genin could get around this, Sensei had me cracking tougher locks than this at eight.' He took out a kunai, jammed it between where the sill met the window and flexed. There was a huge crack as wood splintered and the lock snapped, but he wasn't trying to be stealthy. He pushed the window all the way up and slipped through.

Ino gave a little gasp, "Should we be destroying school property?"

"They're testing ninja, I'm sure they expect some things to get broken," he chided. "Don't worry; if they charge us I'll cover the bill. I got plenty of money piling up in the bank from the missions I've carried out for my master."

"Sounds good to me," said Shikamaru has he climbed in the building.

It was a shirt trip down the hall to room 301 where a jonin was leaning against the wall near the door. Tall and lean, with spiky chalk colored hair, he had his Konoha forehead protector pulled down over one eye and lounged with a casually dangerous demeanor. It could only be one man, "Good afternoon Hatake Kakashi" he said politely. Aside from his renowned skill, all Haku could recall about Kakashi was that he was the last living student of the Fourth, was super laid back and constantly late. His Sensei always found time to complain about the later when talking about him. "Worried that your students have picked up your bad habit?" he gently teased.

Kakashi cocked an eyebrow and answered in a droll tone "Is Lord Jariaya telling tales about me?"

Haku just smiled and shrugged in response, "Maybe."

Kakashi got an oddly serious look on his face, "Well to answer your question, if my students took up the unfairly maligned hobby of publicly reading pornography, I'd be thrilled and just so so proud!" He sobbed dramatically.

Haku gaped at the man, and Ino shriked "Ewww!" Shikamaru was just shaking his head in the background, as if he couldn't believe what he just heard.

"I…I meant your penchant for being late," Haku said faintly. "I forgot that Jaraiya sensei said you're a big fan of his books."

"Please tell Lord Jiraiya that I am eagerly awaiting his next masterpiece." Kakashi said fervently, eye closed and smiling.

"I will," Haku said visibly perturbed. He was used to his sensei being creepy, not so much from men he'd just met. "Ah, we've got to get going, the exam waits for no one" he said opening the door and stepping inside. The room was packed with chunin hopefuls, almost all of them older than Haku's teammates and all of them attempting to look as brutal and badass as possible. Most of them couldn't pull off the look in Haku's opinion. Team Eight was huddling in the corner off to the right, eyeing the competition.

Ino followed sliding along the wall on the other side of the hallway from Kakashi and making a small noise of disgust when he pulled a little orange book out of his pocket and began reading it with a giggle. Shikamaru quickly followed, "That was more troubling than troublesome," he said scornfully. "He makes Asuma look reasonable in comparison."

"Wow, there are a lot of people here." Ino said softly, briefly overwhelmed by the glaring crowd.

Haku put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly, "Most of them are paper tigers," he said loudly. "The only ones we have to worry about is that Sand team with the Kazekage's kids," pointing them out with his other hand. The Sand trio looked at him speculatively, weighing his worth with their eyes, while the rest of the gathering seethed with anger at their casual dismissal. Grumbled threats and weak spikes of killing intent followed. Ino seemed more interested in the hand on her shoulder than any of them though, looking at it out of the corner of her eyes and flushing scarlet.

He jerked his hand back with a wince, 'Come on, we don't have time to deal with this right now,' he thought with irritation. 'Your life is going to be on the line here.' She turned to say something, then her eyes widened as the door opened behind him. He spun around to see Team Seven entering the room.

"Hey Forehead!" Ino yelled, waving at her with one hand and reaching out to put her other around Haku's waist. He smoothly slid to the side and out of her range.

The pink haired kunoichi of the team snarled and pointed at Ino "Pig! Don't call me that!" Haku thought her name was Sakura, a child from a minor shinobi family. Her father had had great potential but had been forced to limit his career to the rear echelon due to injuries suffered in the Third Shinobi World War. She gave a start at the sight of him, "Who's this?"

"And what happened to Choji?", Naruto asked. As always he was decked out in orange and he was looking at Haku as if he was on the tip of remembering something important. The Uchiha scion next to him eyed Haku with calculated interest disguised behind a mask of indifference.

"He's in the hospital, recovering from getting sliced with a poisoned knife on our last mission. He should be good in a week." Shikamaru answered bluntly.

Team Seven got a little quiet at that, but Naruto didn't seem one to be depressed for long, he smacked a fist in his palm, turned to Sakura and said "I know who this guy is! He's the old perv's minion!"

"Old perv?" Sakura asked in surprised, shooting a startled look at Haku.

He let out a long suffering sigh and said in a loud clear voice "My name is Yuki Haku, and I'm the apprentice of Lord Jiraiya of the Legendary Three."

The background chatter went silent at that and Sakura's mouth fell open, with even Uchiha Sasuke looking interested at that point. She whirled around at Naruto, "Don't call Lord Jiraiya an Old Perv!" she shouted in scandalized tone.

He answered with a smirk. "Who do you think writes all those little orange books Kakashi sensei is always reading?" A wave of horrified understanding washed across the girls face. Naruto went on, "That old letch is a perverted, irresponsible drunk, who thinks being a good Godfather is limited to paying for my apartment and popping into visit and check on how I'm doing every couple of years."

"Lord Jiraiya is not a drunk!" Haku objected. "He's the Hokage's right arm, and he's constantly at work enforcing his will. He visits you whenever he can." That was mostly the truth. 'Of course he only met you that first time because I badgered him unmercifully when I learned he had a godson he'd never met.' Haku thought, 'Still, the last two visits were his idea and to his credit.' "Now that you're a shinobi, Sensei will have much more to offer you." Haku explained.

"I know, I know," Naruto said with frustration. "He's an alright guy underneath it all, it just sucks growing up mostly alone."

"You're Lord Jiraiya's godson!" Ino shrieked in surprise while Sasuke and Sakura stared at Naruto like he'd grown a second head.

"Well well, looks we've found something interesting," Inuzaka Kiba said, finally deigning to saunter over with his team. He had a wild, shaggy look that contrasted with the restrained visage of the Aburame to his right, and the timidness of the Hyuga to his left. "Looks like Team Ten might be a surprise contender, and Naruto is even more pitiful than we believed."

"Kiba! You shouldn't" Hinata started to object meekly, before Naruto roared over her. "We'll see who's pitiful at the end of this exam. I'm gonna crush you, and the same goes for the rest of you bastards here!" he shouted, spinning to glare out at the crowd.

"Are you some kind of moron?" Shikamaru asked with a look of disgust on his face. "You just made everyone here your enemy."

"Big words from a little man," laughed Kiba.

"Hey!" Naruto pointed emphatically at Kiba, and was about to launch into another tirade when they were interrupted by a tall young man with glasses, his light gray hair gathered in a pony tail that hung to the nape of his neck.

"You know you rookies really shouldn't make so much of a ruckus," the young man said with a condescending smirk. "Screaming like school girls and throwing out playground taunts is just gonna rile this crowd up," he warned. "These guys are the best of the best, ruthless veterans that are looking for weakness."

"Oh well," he shook his head. "I can't really blame you; I was the same way back in the day." It was all just a bit too melodramatic for Haku's taste; there was just something a little off about this guy, though he couldn't say what.

"Who do you think you are to talk down to us?" Ino demanded.

"My name's Kabuto," the silver haired teen replied. "And..."

"You're trying to psych out the up and coming competition." Haku interjected, looking at Kabuto with reproach. "Don't listen to him kids. You're here as rookies because you have talent, while guys like this don't."'

Kabuto's cheek twitched, drawing his smirk up into a brief grimace. He opened his mouth to respond and the front of the room exploded with smoke as two dozen ninja flickered in.

"Shut the hell up you worthless bastards!" yelled the man in front with a menacing burst of killing intent. It seemed to rattle the crowd and Haku supposed he made a rather imposing sight to most genin what with his height, solid build and the long scar that trailed down from just outside his left eye, down across his mouth to the bottom of his chin on the right. "I am Morino Ibiki, and I am the proctor for the first phase of the Chunin Selection Exam. I am the word of God to you maggots! Those that disobey me will fail immediately!"

He went on, staring down at anyone who even twitched. "Rule number one, there will be no fighting in this stage of the exam without my permission. In the unlikely event I grant permission, killing your opponent will not be allowed." Some in the crowd murmured at this, making light of Konoha's 'softness'. Ibiki smirked and his scar flexed in an unsightly manner. "Cross me on this and I will crush you."

"Now, hand in your paper work and take a token from this box and sit at the seat assigned. Once you are all seated Kotetsu will hand out the exam."

"What!?", Naruto wailed in disbelief, mouth gaping open in a look of horrified despair. "A paper test!?"

Despite himself Haku couldn't help but smile at the boys antics. He patted his two teammates on the back and told them, "Good luck Ino, Shikamaru, just try your best and remember to read underneath the underneath."

It took a couple of minutes for everyone to get a number and then find where they were supposed to be; but soon enough everyone was in their seats, test paper turned over in front of them. Haku ended up sitting in the middle of the third to last table to the back on the right side, while Shikamaru was in the same row at the table on the left and Ino was at the middle table one row further back. 'Pretty convenient given her mind body switch technique' he thought. 'There's no way this exam is a simple as a paper test.'

He was quickly proven right as Morino quickly outlined a series of rules that made clear that the objective of the test was really to measure the ability of the genin to cheat and not get caught. 'Morino isn't exactly being subtle with that little monologue about proud shinobi,' Haku thought. 'Just two points off for cheating, you pass or fail as a team and all these sentries here just to enforce that rule… it can't be clearer. This is a simulation of our ability to gather intelligence.' The difficulty of the questions only reinforced that impression when he turned over his paper, 'I can solve this cryptography question, and maybe one or two of the others, but that's it. I bet most of the kids here can't even do that, algebra isn't exactly a core shinobi subject.'

Haku polished off the cryptogram in couple of minutes, 'Sensei's shopping lists are better encrypted then that,' he thought with annoyance. 'Might as well get the rest of the answers the easy way, there have to be plants in here for us to cheat off.' He surveyed the room with his eyes, and caught just the hint of reflected light from one of the lights fixtures set into the ceiling. He thought someone had managed to plant a mirror there, but it was angled in such a way the glare wouldn't be detectable by the proctors. 'Clever, but whoever put it there probably lost a few points getting it up there. I think I can do better than that.' He kept his gaze on his paper, pencil in his right hand, while his left hand made signs tight against his thigh. A small mirror of ice solidified in the well of the light ahead of him. It was simple for him to manipulate it and get a good view of a test sheet that was more than half full and filling up fast, and there was really no way for the proctors to trace it back to him. 'That should do it,' he thought and began to transcribe.

Haku was finished with time to spare and contemplated flashing the answers over to his teammates. 'Coordinating with Ino could be a little tough with her out of my line of sight, but Shikamaru's definitely doable,' he thought. A single movement of his hand and the angle of the mirror shifted, flashing in Shikarmaru's eyes. The boy looked up and after a few seconds started writing. 'Ino will have to take care of herself,' he decided, 'her technique is perfect for this.' After that he spent his time watching the competition get whittled down as team after team was tossed out for cheating. He heard a small thump to his back and off to his left, 'Ino must be using her technique, but on who?' he wondered. 'I'm surprised she didn't pick me,' he thought, surveying the crowd. 'Ah, there we go.' Sakura was oddly stiff, staring at the exam sheet she held in her hands. 'Guess cheating off her paper is just a continuation of their silly rivalry,' he thought with a sigh.

With that the exam was effectively done for Team Ten. There were some interesting sights to be seen before it officially finished up. There was the little act with the older Sand boy and his doll as the proctor called it. 'A puppet', Haku decided, 'Sand's known for its mastery of the shinobi art of puppetry.'

After that Morino put on a wonderful display of intimidation that had most of the genin quaking in their boots. 'Keep them genin forever? Who does he think he's kidding?' Haku wondered. 'There's no way the Hokage, let alone foreign villages would ever agree to that.' Despite the obvious though, team after team was dismissed as genin gave up to their consternation of their teammates. 'How did these kids even survive their first C-class mission?' Haku asked himself in disgust.

Thankfully Naruto put a stop to that. "Don't underestimate me!" he screamed. "I will not run! I'll take it! Even if I'm a genin forever, I'll will myself to become Hokage! So I don't care! I am not afraid!"

"I'll ask you again." Morino said, eyes looked on Naruto with a glare that could melt through iron. "Your life is riding on this decision. This is your last chance to quit."

"I follow my unbending words," Naruto replied. "That's my ninja way."

'Now that's a speech Sensei would love,' Haku thought with a smile. 'The will to endure hardship and face adversity, that's what being a ninja is all about.'

The proctor was just wrapping up his speech on leadership and making tough choices when the window to his right exploded in a spray of breaking glass as a wildly spinning woman somersaulted through it. As she cartwheeled upright she threw kunai into the ceiling, unfurling a giant banner theatrically announcing herself as Mitarashi Anko, the exam's next proctor. "Listen up you guys!" she yelled. "This is no time to be celebrating! I am the Examiner for the second test! Mitarashi Anko!" she redundantly introduced herself, fist thrust dramatically in the air. "Now let's go!"

Everyone stared at her in shock. 'That was an entrance that would make Sensei envious; she's like a young female version of him!' Haku marveled. Then he realized what she was wearing, her toned muscles and soft curves were covered by a trench coat, miniskirt and chainmail and not much else. Haku felt his cheeks grow warm. 'She cannot be allowed to meet Sensei! That would be an absolute disaster waiting to happen,' he thought with alarm.

"Seventy-eight!" Mitarashi yelled in outrage. "How could you leave twenty-six teams Ibiki?" She sounded scandalized. "Your test was way too easy this time!"

"This time there are a lot of exceptional candidates" Morino replied.

"Whatever, I'll cut them in half at least during my test," Mitarashi said dismissively. "Ah, I'm getting excited," she said with wild smirk. "Follow me kiddies, I'll explain when we get there," and then she vaulted out the window.

The genin followed, breaking several more windows on their way out. About five minutes later they reached their destination, just outside the outskirts of the village. A great tangled forest, surrounded by chain link fence, dense with trees a dozen meters thick and ten times as high. "Welcome to the second stage of the Chunin Exam, training ground forty-four. Otherwise known as the Forest of Death!" Mitarashi announced with relish.

'Looks like this is where my real mission begins,' Haku thought solemnly. Then he shook his head. 'What I'm getting so worked up about? I've been on eleven A-class missions. As long as I manage to avoid a decisive engagement with Gaara we'll be fine.'


	4. Snake in the Grass

In a remarkably short period of time the second test was explained, Naruto traumatized by the bloodthirsty proctor, release forms signed and heaven and earth scrolls distributed. Team Ten stood before the chain link fence of gate 17 waiting for the test to begin. Even at its edge there was an ominous silence to this forest. The towering old growth stretched across the horizon and had massive weight to it that seemed to press down on you, as if the forest itself was plotting against you. The chain link fence circling the forest seemed like a fragile, pitiful thing in comparison.

The chunin guarding the fence's gate cocked his head, obviously receiving a transmission through his headset. "Roger that," he said into the mike, "Will do, over and out." He looked at Haku, "Team Eight's at gate 26 and Team Seven is at Gate 12, you have five minutes so you'd best get moving."

"Right", Haku said putting his hands together and summoning two shadow clones. They appeared with a pop of displaced air and a puff of smoke and then were off, leaping up and over the fence and heading west. He hoped there were no major incidents any time soon, those clones had him down to one third of his chakra and he didn't want to have to use a soldier pill this early on in the exam.

"What was that!?" Ino squawked in surprise.

"Something to do with the Kazekage's children's I'd guess." Shikamaru said, stroking his chin in contemplation. "Haku's mentioned them several times as a serious threat, while downplaying the rest of the field."

"You'd make your father proud Shikamaru," Haku said with a smile. "The issue is the Kazakage's youngest son. He's certifiably psychotic and is said to have bloodily foiled several assassination attempts against him by his father's own ANBU."

"No way!" Ino gasped, clearly disturbed. But whether she was disturbed by a father attempting to assassinate his own son, or the idea that they might have to fight a boy who had survived such attempts was less evident.

"Troublesome seems like an understatement in this case." Shikamaru opined, clearly displeased by that fact.

"Definitely," Haku agreed. "Especially when you consider who makes up the rookie teams this year. They're almost all children of prominent clan families, many of them actual clan heirs," Haku said, taking time to look directly at the two of them. "The Kazekage, while technically an ally, no doubt resents being the junior partner in our alliance as being unfitting of one of the five great shinobi nations. If he could encourage Gaara to clear the field so to speak, then he could seriously damage our standing in the eyes of the rest of the ninja world."

"So you're our bodyguard then? I thought it might be something like that." Shikamaru sighed.

"Why would the Hokage let someone like that into the exam?" Ino asked quietly.

"He's only twelve, the Kazakage can easily argue that he hasn't shown the leadership and maturity to be promoted yet," Haku explained. "If the Hokage denies him entrance then it's only a short step from that to a spiraling cycle of retaliation that could bring the whole exam system crashing down."

"Politics," Shikarmaru griped, "another synonym for troublesome."

"That's where I come in," Haku told them. "Since I've only run missions with Jiraiya sensei or by myself, the Hokage can make the same argument that I haven't shown leadership potential and that I am a valid candidate for the exam." Then he gave them a mischievous smile, "Of course, I really shouldn't be allowed to enter the grounds early, but I won't tell if you won't."

"What if Team Seven or Eight gets in trouble with another team?" Ino asked pensively.

"My orders are to let other fights run their course unless I have reason to believe that their opponents are of a similarly elevated level," Haku replied. "Still, working within that restriction I'll try to make sure no one dies where it can be prevented."

Ino, and Shikamaru for that matter, didn't really seem satisfied by that answer. But it took most shinobi a long time to come to grips with the deadly nature of their profession. 'It's something I still struggle with myself,' Haku thought with somber reflection.

That put a damper on further conversation. They simply waited in silence for the chunin in charge of the gate to unlock it and swing it open.

Then they were in, bounding high up into the canopy and the second exam had begun.

"Everyone's going to be heading to the tower eventually," Shikamaru observed. "We should head there first and try to ambush teams with two scrolls. They'll have what we need and hopefully be worn out from fighting and the trip."

"It's as good a plan as any," Haku agreed. "On the way there we should stay close to the river. It'll cost me a lot less chakra if I have a ready access to a large source of water."

"Sounds good," Ino said as Shikamaru nodded in agreement. And then they were off, traveling at a swift and steady pace, hopping from branch to branch.

* * *

Haku observed Team Eight from high up in the canopy of the forest, off to their left and downwind. Kiba didn't seem to have noticed him, though his two teammates had. It was subtle; they were good for genin at hiding their reaction to finding him, but he could tell. A slight movement of the head, a shifting of the feet, and a dozen other tiny actions made it clear to anyone trained to read them.

These three worked well together and they worked fast. They'd managed to throw together a pretty effective looking trap in no time, and it looked like another team of Leaf genin were about to take the bait. They were circling around to take the best attack angle, moving right into the kill zone of Kiba's trap. 'These guys definitely don't have the situational awareness necessary to become chunin," Haku thought disparagingly.

The trap went off, the victims howling in pain and terror as they were showered with giant jumping leeches and ensnared in a net. Their struggling was brief as the potent numbing agent of the leeches took effect and they lost consciousness.

Haku moved in closer to observe what the rookies would do with them and didn't like what he heard.

"Five minutes of sucking and you'll be in the next world!" gloated Kiba.

Haku shook his head at that, 'I've killed my share of ninja over the last few years for my master Jiraiya, but I've never killed Leaf nin.' Troubled, he thought back on his lessons on shinobi law, both the letter and the reality. 'I know there may be times when it's necessary, if a comrade goes rogue or commits treason or espionage. But an exam, when you've already won? No,' he decided and leaped out onto a branch that overlooked the ambush zone.

Drawing two fists full of senbon, he let loose and skewered each leech through the head. The steel needles puffed away after impact but the damage they did remained. They gave chittering little shrieks as they thrashed and twisted about, oozing blood and thick viscous bile as they died.

Kiba moved as if to lunge forward, but jerked to a halt when Shino grabbed an arm. "Wait", he said. Kiba looked at Shino sideways, eyes narrowed, but whatever he wanted to say he kept to himself in front of Haku.

"A little blood thirsty aren't you?" Haku said coolly. "People do die in these exams, it's inevitable. But letting comrades die after completely incapacitating them, and being able to prevent it with no risk to yourselves, well that's just unacceptable."

"They're no comrades of mine!" Kiba growled.

"They wear the Leaf on their headband don't they?" Haku asked, disdain lacing his voice. "That kind of attitude better belongs to the Blood Mist Village or the time of warring clans from before the establishment of the Hidden Villages," he said scornfully. "Aren't the Inuzuka supposed to be all about the good of the pack?" Kiba jerked at that, face shading red, thought whether in embarrassment or offense was hard to tell.

Haku continued on, "Even putting morality aside, did you think that letting them die wouldn't have repercussions? You're supposed to be chunin, think ahead!"

"We're simply fulfilling the objectives of the exam in the most efficient and logical manner," Shino commented.

"It's too bad people aren't logical then." Haku said dryly. "There are cameras throughout this forest, including one focused on this clearing" he told them, motioning at it with a small nod. "While it might help you pass this exam, do you think this kind of thing will engender good will and trust between you and the jonin? And what of their families and revenge? You think people won't talk, just because the shinobi rules say not to?" He shook his head slowly, "That's too naïve. The only one who's likely to wholeheartedly approve of this is a man who you very much do not want to draw the attention of. He would break you and send you on missions that would make what's left of your sullied soul scream from where it's imprisoned deep inside, while you looked out at the world with dead black eyes."

Hinata looked worried and cutely embarrassed, looking down and flushing red, pressing her fingers together. Shino had his cocked back as if he was thinking on what Haku had said, and Kiba with a disgruntled look on his face was nodding. It seemed he agreed with what he was being told, though he either didn't like the message or the messenger. It was the later Haku thought, Kiba was still giving him a suspicious eye.

"Looks like you understand," Haku said. "Head to the tower and think on what I've said. The Kazekage's children are still out there, and you definitely didn't want to run into them." He jumped up into the canopy, fading back into the leafy crowns of the great trees.

"Who the hell is this Haku to talk down to us like that!?" Kiba growled. "And why is he following us?"

"Ah… that's a long story Kiba." Hinata stuttered. "I'll tell you on the way."

"Yes, we should take their scroll and leave," Shino said, putting action to word and beginning to search their unconscious victims.

"Alright, but I want to hear everything you know." Kiba demanded, as he rifled through one of their opponent's pockets. He jerked, and with a grin withdraw a scroll of Heaven. "Yahooo! We got we need, let's go!"

After a quick search to see if the other team had anything else of use on them, Team Eight leaped up into the high branches and started heading east toward the tower.

* * *

The shadow clone following Team Seven frowned. Someone was watching them, and it wasn't the Rain ninja that had attacked his charges either. He'd been easily taken care of by Sasuke. 'No, this feels like someone much more dangerous,' he thought.

He stretched out his senses, hearing the faint rustle of leaves in the wind and feeling the soft breeze brush his face. He wasn't a chakra sensor, but something kept drawing his attention to the clearing Team Seven was in. 'What is this? I don't see anything unusual,' he thought with concern. 'Wait, that reed is definitely out of place!' he realized. 'There must be someone spying on them from underground.

He crept silently along the uppermost branches of the canopy that overhung the clearing. The kids were getting up now, Naruto complaining "Hey is this code word really…"

'Hmm, I would have liked to hear that,' Haku thought as Sasuke cut the blonde off brusquely, "I'll hold the scroll."

A splinter of wood zipped past Naruto at tremendous speed, slicing open a shallow cut. "Ow! What the…?"

Haku looked down field in alarm to see a great gust of wind, thick with debris and plainly too strong and broad to be natural, right before it slammed into the unprepared genin, scattering them.

Haku, clung to the branch he was on, lucky that the wind was not as strong high up as it was at ground level. He watched as a trio of Grass ninja flickered into the now empty clearing. Two of them wore masks, and the third was the shinobi who had returned the Proctor's kunai to her with his tongue. "You guys just play around over there, I'll take care of them myself," he said to his fellows, gesturing off in the distance.

'This guy is dangerous,' Haku knew it instinctively, but he could not say why. It wasn't that the Grass ninja looked any different than he had when he'd been waiting outside the forest, when he'd merely seemed creepy. Still, now he just seemed to exude menace and a dangerous competency. 'If I wasn't using Sensei's transparent escape technique this guy would notice me for sure,' Haku thought. "He's probably a ringer like me," he decided. "But why Grass? Does he plan to cut out and take Sasuke's eyes?" he wondered.

The Grass ninja transformed into Naruto and took off towards the northeast and Haku followed, drawing forth a kunai with an exploding tag with his left hand and his short sword with the right. The fake quickly came upon Sasuke and Sakura. "Oww…you guys alright?" the false Naruto asked, rubbing his bloody face.

"Naruto, wait a second, the code word!" Sakura demanded.

"I know…," he answered with a rueful smile and then quoted, "A large amount of loud enemies is the friend of the shinobi, hide and remain silent. A shinobi must understand the proper time, when the enemy is tired and ill prepared."

Sakura sighed with relief, but Sasuke simply smirked and flung a kunai at him.

"Woah" the transformed Grass ninja yelled as he dodge the incoming projectile. 'How could he tell?' Haku wondered, circling around and waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Sasuke! Why?" asked a dumbfounded Sakura.

"So this time it's someone who can dodge my attacks," Sasuke commented, seemingly talking to himself and ignoring Sakura entirely.

"What are you talking about Sasuke?" Sakura shouted in confusion.

There was an impressive puff of smoke as the fake dispelled his transformation in an overly dramatic fashion. "Impressive that you knew," he remarked. "How did you know? That I was a fake?" he asked.

"I knew you were listening to our conversation from under the ground," Sasuke answered. "That's why I made the code word like that. There's no way Naruto could remember a song that long. So you had to be a fake," he explained with a grin.

'Makes sense. Naurto isn't the sharpest shuriken in the set," Haku thought, impressed at the Uchiha's forethought.

The Grass ninja seemed to feel the same. "I see…neither tired, nor ill prepared are we? This will be more fun than I thought."

"It wasn't Naruto again?" the pink haired girl growled with frustration. Both her and her teammate seemed to sense that this opponent was on another level from them, and the Uchiha wasn't happy about it. Sasuke was glaring at the Grass ninja as if he was a personal affront. Sakura on the other hand looked wary, left hand hovering near a kunai holster, ready to draw.

"You want the Earth scroll right?" the Grass ninja asked, tongue lolling obscenely from his mouth as he pulled said scroll from a pouch. "Since you guys have the Heaven scroll…"

Haku and the Leaf genin watched in disgusted astonishment as the Grass ninja tilted his head back and smoothly pushed the scroll down his throat. "Now let's begin the battle for each other's scroll, with our lives on the line" he said ominously, licking his lips.

'I just missed a good opportunity to attack,' Haku berated himself. 'I got distracted by his weirdness; I should be immune to that kind of thing after living with Sensei so long!'

Then the Grass shinobi unleashed a vast torrent of unspeakable killing intent. Haku wasn't in his line of sight, so he was only brushed by the fringe, but that was enough to curdle his blood. 'This isn't someone on my level,' Haku realized with dismay. 'This is someone as far above me as Jiraiya sensei! There isn't a Grass ninja on that level as far as I know, who the hell is he?'

'This is bad, really bad,' he thought as Sasuke vomited and Sakura began to tremble and weep.

"He he, you can no longer move," the Grass ninja giggled darkly.

His whole body shuddering, Sasuke took a kunai and stabbed himself in the thigh, breaking the spell of paralyzing fear. He rolled to his right, grabbing Sakura and absconding with her. Twin kunai hit where they had lay frozen a fraction of a second later.

'He's playing with them,' Haku realized. 'He could kill them anytime he wants to. What is this guy after?'

The Grass ninja went to retrieve his kunai and smiled. It was a vicious, tight little smile like one worn by a cat who's found an interesting mouse. Then he summoned a snake four meters long, was willingly swallowed by it and Haku knew exactly who this was. There was no way in hell a clone could even hope to slow him down, so he dispelled himself and let the original know what was going on.

* * *

Anko was not enjoying her dango has much as she had expected to. Oh, they were as sweet and delicious as always, but they weren't the problem. No, the problem was the man sitting in the crook of the tree to her right. Big and bold, with shocking white hair highlighting his red coat, no one could miss Jiraiya. Unless he wanted you to of course, then almost no one could find him. He was scribbling in that little notebook of his, giggling perversely, and sneaking a peek over the top of it at her whenever he thought she wasn't looking.

He'd appeared in a puff smoke, flickering in from who knows where, and she'd greeted him with a hail of shuriken that he'd knocked away with his hair. It was all very nonchalant and infuriating. He hadn't even bother to object to the attack or say hello, or anything. He'd just whipped out that notebook of his and started writing. 'My standard procedure of terrifying whoever's bothering me just won't work with this man,' she seethed in frustration.

"Why are you here Jiraiya," she asked bluntly, fed up with the situation and no longer willing to hold back.

"The Hokage wanted me to be on hand if Gaara or Naruto lose control of their Tailed Beast," he answered. "It would hardly make the Leaf Village look good if Shukaku went on a rampaged and killed all the contestants," he said with a laugh.

"Ok, that's reasonable," Anko replied. "But what does that have to do with you setting up shop in that tree to annoy me?" she asked with a sugary mock sincerity. It was the kind of tone that would leave her peers far more alarmed than her casual bloodlust, but Jiraiya just raised an eyebrow at her.

He opened his mouth to reply, but he was preempted by a chunin flickering into being before them. "Big trouble Lady Anko!" he declared, and then quailed at the scathing look she sent him.

"This better be good, I'm already having a bad day," she told him.

"It is," he said, explanation . "There are bodies, three of them, and they are just weird. Please come and look!"

Anko cocked her in surprise. 'Well, that wasn't what I expected.'

"Sounds like it could be important," Jiraiya opined from his perch. "What do you mean by weird?"

"It's their faces Lord Jiraiya…they look they've been melted off somehow, as if the flesh flowed like hot wax rather than burning, leaving their faces blank."

Jiraiya's face grew darker with every word, a furious expression settling on his face. "Orochimaru," he spat venomously.

"What did these three ninjas look like?" Anko demanded with a wild look on her face.

"Ah, Kotetsu has their photos and identification papers," the chunin answered quickly, "but they're definitely one of the Grass teams that passed the first test."

"I know which one he's masquerading as," Anko said, her mind replaying the Grass ninja with the prehensile tongue. "How did I not notice that was him!" she berated herself in disgust.

"Summon the Lord Hokage and the ANBU." Jiraiya commanded the chunin. "We're going in after him." And with that they disappeared in a swirl of leaves as they entered the Forest of Death.

* * *

Haku's eyes widened in shock as the memories of his shadow clone arrived. The rest of Team Ten jerked to a halt as he suddenly stopped. "Orochimaru is in the Forest of Death!" he exclaimed in surprise. Ino's face went pale, and Shikamaru's wasn't exactly composed either. Quickly producing a shadow clone to stay with his team, he popped a soldier pill to restore his chakra reserves and launched himself into a freshly formed mirror to the astonishment of his teammates.

He flowed into the mirror like quicksilver, entering it without causing a ripple and then seeming to vanish like a fading light. Forcing himself to the edge of his limits, a second mirror formed, five hundred meters to the southeast. It was out of his original line of sight but that wasn't a problem, his mirrors simply wouldn't form inside a solid structure. They would instead shift to the nearest open area of the appropriate size. He passed through the space that was not, riding a frozen prism of light between the mirrors and flowing out of the second mirror a fraction of a second later. It made the body flicker seem slow. In fact it made everything seem slow; even though he was moving at tremendous speed he was able to take in everything outside that mirror as if he was soaking it in with a leisurely glance. Anyone and anything outside the mirror seemed to be moving in slow motion.

He made a third mirror and jumped into it, a flash of turquoise light between mirrors that would seem to most to have started to crumble as soon as they finished being formed. He made a fourth mirror, and a fifth and a sixth. With the seventh he'd reached the last position of his clone. The fighting had moved off a bit, a hundred meters to the left and thirty meters further off the ground. The head of the summoned snake had been cut to ribbons by a hail of kunai and shuriken, and Orochimaru was tearing open its neck from the inside, rising dramatically from the bleeding corpse with head bowed before the shocked faces of Sasuke and Sakura.

"You guys shouldn't relax for even a moment," he lectured the frightened genin as a crystal ice mirror solidified behind him and Haku blurred out of it, wakizashi drawn and flowing with wind chakra. With inhuman quickness Orochimaru spun around and hit Haku in the face with a brutal backfist as the boy cut him in half at the waist in a red spray of blood. The force of the blow flung Haku off his feet and sent him skidding back across the branch while the top of Orochimaru was separated from the bottom by a hands worth of space.

'I won!' Haku thought in amazement only to have the euphoria of victory that was blossoming within him dashed as dozens of snakes slick with crimson emerged from both Orochimaru's torso and waist, bridging the gap between them, entangling with each other and drawing the two halves together. Binding up the wound so quickly and seamlessly that only his blood soaked clothes hinted that he'd ever been injured.

Haku staggered to his feet, spitting blood and feeling at his teeth with his tongue. 'Should have known it wouldn't be so easy,' he thought ruefully. 'Nothing's loose at least, just cut up the inside of my cheek.'

"Kukuku!" the traitor cackled. "Now that's an interesting technique, but you won't catch me twice with it. The feel of unnatural cold air forming behind you gives it away," he declared with a mocking tone. "Still I am impressed, if there's one thing Jiraiya can do, it's teach. But then they say that those who can't do, teach." He leered at Haku, distended tongue licking his lips. "Looks like I might be giving more than one kiss tonight."

Orochimaru blurred into motion, spiraling down the tree as he dodged a hail of kunai and shrunken. "Shut up and die you sick freak!" Naruto shouted at him, before sheepishly rubbing the back of his head and looking at Sasuke. "Sorry Sasuke, I forgot the code word."

"Naruto, are you suicidal!?" Sasuke yelled. "This guy just pulled himself together after getting split in half. Run and don't look back!"

"All three of you should run. Make for the fence and don't stop for anything. This isn't about a promotion anymore." Haku exclaimed. "He wants to brand Sasuke and me with his cursed seal and make us his slaves!" The Uchiha paled with disgust at the pronouncement and Naruto and Sakura looked outraged and worried in turn.

"Kukuku," the rogue ninja laughed. "You're not that good enough to stop me yet and if you try too hard to get in my way you won't live long enough to even get close."

"We'll see about that," Haku said forcefully. He looked cool, collected and confident on the outside, but on the inside it was a different story. 'That's easier said than done; my ice crystal dome won't work,' he thought, frantically turning the situation over in his head. 'He can just summon Manda, and if that doesn't break my mirrors, it's still too much mass for the dome to contain. Manda would at least force them apart and enable his master to escape.' He quickly cut off that line of thought. 'Don't think of what I can't do, think of what I can. I'm not going to beat him straight up. I have to provoke him into making a mistake. Play on his ego and pride, that's always been his flaw.'

Grasping that thin reed, Haku smirked and said, "You may be the great Orochimaru of the Legendary Three Ninjas, but you're not invincible." Sakura gasped, and Sasuke eye's widened, the two clearly recognizing the name. Haku went on, needling the monster in front of him, trying to provoke him into doing something rash. "In fact if I remember Jiraiya sensei's stories right, isn't that how you all earned that nickname? By getting your ass handed to you by Hanzo the Salamander?"

Orochimaru narrowed his serpentine eyes at him. "Don't speak of things of which you know nothing boy."

"Oh I think I know enough." Haku smiled. "My master loves talking about how you left the village because you just couldn't handle your genius being matched by that of your team mates, let alone having it be outshone by one of their students."

"A pity for you that you're not that student then." the Snake sage hissed. "Let's see how much Jiraiya loves to talk when I deliver him your head in a box." And with that he drew a hand across his blood splattered shirt and swiped his thumb down a tattoo on his left arm, leaving a sticky red trail. There was a great poof of smoke and an enormous serpent rose from the shadows within like a leviathan, Orochimaru standing tall on its head like a ship cresting a wave.

'I really shouldn't have turned down Sensei's toads,' Haku castigated himself. 'Or at least made him let me take that trip to the northern mountains on the shore of the Frozen Sea to treat with the Snow Bear King. My style or not, those toad's would be really useful right now.'

Then the snake twisted with inhuman grace and struck down at Sasuke, and everything was chaos, moving at speeds too fast to think. One could only react. As the snake turned Haku sensed movement at his flanks, and he jumped high and back, dodging an attack by a clone from the left, and deflecting an attack by a clone from the right with his sword. Then it was a whirl of blades as they hacked and slashed and Haku desperately defended himself.

He could see flickers of blurred motion in the distance as blades clashed, exploding tags detonated and balls of flame flew through the air. Naruto was screaming in the background, a scream bleeding into a roar as the air grew thick with malevolence, both his and Orochimaru's. Haku blocked left low, and right high and then sliced off the hand of the clone to his right, blood spraying and morphing into viscous mud. Before it could completely dissolve Haku took a vicious kick to the chest from it that sent him flying and slamming into the tree's trunk with bone jarring force. The impact splintered the bark, and wood tough enough to dull the sharpest ax cracked underneath him.

'Shit!' he cursed to himself, hurling himself to the side and throwing himself off the tree, kunai slicing along the side of his arm as he just narrowly missed being run through by the second clone. It followed after him without hesitation, diving off the branch head first, kunai held with its sick tongue and aiming for his back.

'Wrong move!' Haku grinned tightly, forming a mirror below him. He fell through it like an open window, exiting a second mirror that formed right above Orochimaru's clone. It hit the first mirror with sick splat, head smashing open against a pane of ice stronger than steel in a scarlet shower of blood and muddy chunks. Haku sprung off the mirror, using it as leverage to leap high in the air back towards the rest of the action. He bounced off a trunk up into the high branches. Over in the crown of the next tree stood Orochimaru, his face half melted and torn to shreds but still standing proud, across from the horrified countenances of Sakura and Sasuke. His hands started to flash into signs and Haku's followed.

One seal later and a roiling dragon of water exploded from his mouth at Orochimaru and his grotesquely extending neck. It slammed into him with full force, knocking him ass over teakettle and off the branch. Or so it seemed, for as the crash and splash of impact dispersed the water it became clear that he had used his hideously distended neck to wrap around the branch and prevent himself from being thrown off completely. He slithered back up, dodging shuriken from Sasuke as he did so without even a glance.

"You choose the wrong time to interfere," he hissed spitefully, "and now I'm going to", he leapt back suddenly as a big red and white blur pounced down onto his former position.

"Die." Jiraiya said solemnly. "That's what you're going to do."

"Feh, seems like this opportunity has passed." The Snake Sage spat. "But don't worry Sasuke," he said with a sick smile. "I'll be back for you when you least expect it." Then he whirled around, kicking the Proctor in the stomach as she tried to attack him from behind, sending her sailing off the tree and to the forest floor below. And then he was off, barely dodging a rasengan that left a terrific crack in the branch where he stood.

"Keep an eye on them" Jirayia roared as he sped after him, Mitarashi quickly following. As they disappeared into the distance, tension just seemed to bleed out of the air. Sakura collapsed to her knees and Sasuke stepped back to sag against the trunk of the tree. Naruto hung from another tree, jacket pinned to the trunk with kunai. He seemed unconscious but otherwise alright.

As the adrenaline leached out of him, feeling returned full force and with it pain. His jaw ached fiercely, his right arm was bleeding and his back was no doubt black and blue. 'But I'm alive, and so are they and that's all that matters.'

"Take Naruto down, we've got to get out of here before the scavengers start sniffing around."

"Right," Sakura said staggering to her feet. Sasuke nodded, and with that they went wearily into action, rescuing Naruto, salvaging what weapons they could and fleeing the scene.


	5. Rain Showers

The clone shadowing Team Eight frowned as the memories of the clone following Team Seven washed over it. 'This isn't good.' he thought sensing the fighting ahead. 'One of them up ahead has a very strong chakra, if that's who I think it is I'm going to have to be extremely careful. There'll be no chance of the original appearing on the scene to save the day if I go down.'

He flickered ahead of the genin, and crept onto the lee of a branch overlooking a small clearing. Gaara was confronting a team of Rain ninja several years older than him. His siblings were guarding his flanks, in a triangle formation.

'Damn! I should have objected when they decided to investigate this battle,' he castigated himself, even though he knew he'd already interfered in their test more than his orders strictly allowed. It was why he had let them go on after all, 'without knowing that it was Gaara up ahead I had no reason to object.'

Haku cocked his head, Team Eight was approaching the scene. They were pretty stealthy for genin, but that wasn't saying much. You didn't have to have any special talent to detect them when you were at his level, and he was pretty sure the Kazekage's kids were closer to him in that area than they were to Team Eight. 'Ah, she knows,' he thought, watching Temari's eyes slide slightly towards their hiding place.

'I have to get these kids out of here,' Haku decided. 'Gaara's going to massacre these Rain ninja, and his bloodlust could easily run out of control. If it's her or them, his sister will definitely redirect him in their direction.'

He silently flickered into being behind them. Hinata started, and the other two spun around at the cue.

"You!" Kiba hissed, more quietly than Haku would have imagined the boy could be.

"Run." Haku ordered them. "That redhead is going to bathe in the blood of that Rain team, and once he gets going he doesn't like to stop." Hinata's face was a dawning mask of horror and it wasn't just his words that inspired it. A short strangled scream let loose, along with a sound akin to a pumpkin splattering against the bottom of a deep canyon. The genin flinched at that, and a brief look at Hinata's expression out of the corners of their eyes was enough to convince the boys. They fled.

'Now to run interference,' the clone sighed, stepping out of the bushes as Gaara finished off the other two Rain ninja, watering the ground with a shower of blood and sand. Temari turned toward him, holding her great iron fan in a forward guarding position. Her mouth dropped open when he said "If you still need to spill blood Gaara, then let it be mine."

"Dude's cracked and gone suicidal!" Kankuro gaped in surprise.

Gaara cocked his head, eyes wild, baring his teeth in an over large grin. "You wish to feed mother?" he asked. "If your life is so worthless, then I'll erase your existence and prove my own."

Haku smiled a condescending little grin, the kind he knew would make someone with control issues rage. "You're welcome to try, but I didn't say I'd make it easy for you." And with the that he condensed an ice mirror from the humid air and stepped into it to the Sand team's surprise.

"Fool." Gaara sneered, "a little pane of glass won't save you." He made a seal, and then thrust his right arm forward and a torrent of sand followed it, crashing down on the mirror like a wave. The mirror didn't crack and it wouldn't have mattered even if it did. Haku was already hurling a kunai with an exploding tag at Gaara's back from the mirror that he'd just created behind the jinchuriki and transported to. Most of Gaara's sand was on the other side of the clearing, but there was enough left around him to snap into a wall. A thin wall that burst inward like a pricked bubble with the force of the explosion that sent Gaara rolling across the ground in an ungainly heap.

"What the hell!?" Kankuro yelled in shock, jumping back from the blast and setting down his puppet. Temari was more proactive, using her iron fan to unleash a blast of wind that deflected a hail of senbon that Haku had unleashed in the hope that the jinchuriki's sand shield would be too slow to block, given the boy's rapid displacement.

'Too late for that now,' Haku thought in disappointment. The full might of Gaara's sand was swirling around him now and he was pulling up more sand from the earth as he staggered to his feet, looking disgustingly hale, the few fine cracks in his sand armor already smoothing out.

"You're strong!" Gaara shouted, voicing cracking and unbalanced. "I'm gonna break you and prove I'm alive." Then he pointed menacingly at his sister. "You! Don't interfere if you know what's good for you."

Her face was tight with worry, her normally harsh voice softened "I'm sorry Gaara, but you're my little brother, I can't just stand by and let you get hurt."

Gaara's arm shook at her, and his jaw clenched, eyes looking crazier than ever but Temari didn't budge. Finally he tore his gaze away from her and looked back at Haku, "time to die!" he proclaimed.

"If you want a real challenge, follow me to the river." Haku answered and took off in a blur of speed.

With a shout that transformed into a growling roar, Haku heard Gaara take off after him. "He's fast, faster than I expected," Haku realized with annoyance. "Not as fast as me, but with these sand tendrils whipping by, he doesn't have to be," he thought as he leaped for a higher branch, the one he'd just left splintered into pieces by a tentacle of sand as thick as his waist and as strong as iron.

Haku rolled to his left and then jumped down another level to avoid being perforated by shards of wood from another exploding branch. 'That was close, he's speeding up.' Haku thought with concern, 'Shukaku's chakra must be supercharging his physical capabilities.' He saw a blue ribbon sparkling up a head through the leaves and pushed his speed to the limit. He burst from the trees, jumping down onto the surface of the river with a smile.

Gaara and his sand followed. A churning river of fine gritty soil flowing out from between the trees, looking like a mountain stream in full flood. With a wave of his hand Haku sent a great wave of water crashing down on grasping tentacles of sand, turning them to mud. Not to be detoured, Gaara lifted his arms and sand shuriken exploded from the bank of the river, howling towards him at tremendous speed.

Haku rose a thick wall of water to shield himself and most of the projectiles were stopped. However the sand near the river was mixed with stones washed ashore from upstream, and some of the shuriken had rocks embedded in them. With more weight adding to their kinetic energy they broke through his barrier with momentum to spare. He rolled to his right missing all but one that tagged him on the left shoulder. Slowed by the water wall, it was hard enough to bruise, but not do much else. It was hard enough to dispel a shadow clone that had used up most of its chakra though, and he disappeared with a puff of smoke.

* * *

Team Seven regrouped a little over a kilometer from the site of their climatic battle with Orochimaru. They were sheltering in a hollow underneath the thick interwoven roots of one of the great trees. The sun was setting and the forest was cast in deep shadows. Shifting, blue black shades that seemed to threaten anyone that looked at them, even Sasuke. Hair tousled, handsome face scratched, he looked fierce even as he lounged by the opening of the tree, sharp eyes on the lookout. Coal black, they seemed to be aware of everything around them, both out there and in here.

Naruto was laid out on the soft loam beneath, breathing steady as Haku checked him over for broken bones and internal bleeding. Sakura watched it all with worry in her heart. A worry that just a few months ago she would have been shocked at by its intensity. 'He's not Sasuke, but somehow Naruto's become important,' she realized. 'If it wasn't for him Orochimaru would have dealt Sasuke a fate worse than death…and that's if Zabuza hadn't already killed us back in the Land of Wave.'

"Is…is he going to be ok?" she asked hesitantly. Haku rocked back on his heels and looked over at her, not quite as beautiful as he'd been when she'd first saw him earlier today. The right side of his jaw was covered in a mottled purple blue bruise, and he moved with an obvious stiffness that spoke of some kind of back injury. Blood stained his right sleeve and she could see a bandage wrapped around his upper arm, just below the shoulder, through a cut in the cloth.

"He looks like he's going to be ok to me. There doesn't seem to be any swelling or signs that he's bleeding internally. Still he's going to need to be checked out by an expert once you get to the tower." Then he paused, "If he doesn't wake in the morning you should take him in, automatic failure or not. This exam isn't worth his life."

Sakura nodded at that, and was surprised when Sasuke interrupted with a snort. "Pft, Naruto isn't going to die from something like that. The stronger the chakra the more tightly a body clings to life, and I'll give the dumbass his due, he's got the strongest I've seen."

Sakura's mouth opened in surprise, 'I don't think I've ever heard Sasuke praise Naruto like that!' she thought in amazement. Sasuke had never really acknowledged Naruto's power in any real way before, and now he was saying Naruto was the best at something. 'It's weird to hear him say that, but it's good too, maybe they'll stop their constant fighting now that they both respect each other,' she thought hopefully.

Haku smiled at that, "I'm sure you're right, but it doesn't hurt to make contingency plans." Sasuke grunted and left it at that, apparently conceding the point. Haku turned back to Sakura, "You know, you've got a lot of potential for this kind of thing," he said waving his hand in Naruto's direction. "More than me anyways, I just know some first aid, and while my chakra control is quite good, I wouldn't call it amazing."

Her confusion must have been clear on her face because he went on to elaborate. "With precise chakra control like yours, you could be one of the next great masters of medical ninjutsu. The same could be said of you and your potential with genjutsu. Master those two arts and you'd be one of the world's most formidable kunoichis."

Sakura flushed in embarrassment, 'I certainly don't feel formidable after that battle.' She dropped her eyes in shame. "I couldn't do anything," she said quietly. "Sasuke and Naruto both managed to fight far beyond my level and even they…" she trailed off not wanting to disparage Sasuke out loud.

"There's no shame in hanging back in support, especially when your teammates are heavy hitters like these two, but one does have to contribute from that position," Haku said pointedly. "If you're as smart as they say you are you should be able to leverage your chakra control into becoming a great advantage. You have to work for it though and believe in yourself. Don't let yourself get down just because you think the boys are leaving you behind."

It sounded good, like the advice that Kakashi sensei had given her before. 'But somehow it seems more realistic when coming from a someone on the outside. Kakashi sensei has to say things like that to me, it's part of his job.'

"Good advice," Sasuke said, echoing Sakura's own thoughts. "But how do you know so much about us? Aside from that fight we barely interacted with each other earlier today, and that's when we first met." Sasuke asked with growing suspicion. "In fact how did you happen to arrive just in the nick of time to save us?" His hand was drifting towards the kunai holster on his left.

Sakura shifted into a position where she could spring into action, though she felt it couldn't really be necessary. "But he did save us Sasuke," she said trying to diffuse the sudden tension.

"I can understand your suspicion. It will serve you well in your career as shinobi." Haku said calmly, sitting still with his hands in the open, clearly making an effort to prevent things from escalating. "I know about you because I was given a mission by the Hokage to protect you and the other rookies from assassins."

"What?" Sakura gasped in shock, incredibly disturbed. "How can we have assassins after us? We're just genin!"

"Did you know this was going to happen?" Sasuke demanded.

"Well we certainly didn't expect Orochimaru to turn up." Haku answered him with an apologetic smile. "But someone like me, who's technical a genin despite being much stronger than that…yes we thought it was a good possibility." Then he turned to Sakura, "As for why, every rookie with the exception of you is not only the scion of a prominent clan, but they are all descended directly from the clan head. The two on this team are for all intents and purposes clan heads themselves."

Sakura goggled at the older boy. "Naruto's the last member of a prominent clan!? There's just no way!" she blurted out in surprise.

Sasuke on the other simply cocked his head and looked at their prone teammate, seeming to weigh him with his eyes, clearly considering what Haku had just said. "All that chakra had to come from somewhere," he finally said. "And it makes Lord Jiraiya being his godfather make more sense.

'Oh, I almost forgot about that revelation,' Sakura realized in embarrassment. 'Still it's all so strange, who would have guessed that Naruto would turn out to be so mysterious.' "Why didn't anyone know?" she asked in bewilderment.

"The history taught at the academy is…simplified and sanitized." Haku answered her after a pause. "No one really learns much about the past until they become a shinobi, and then only if they look for the truth."

'That's great.' Sakura thought in annoyance. 'Why even bother teaching it in the academy then? All that study time wasted…' she grumbled to herself.

"Alright, I can see why other villages might want to exploit this exam to take us out and hurt the Leaf," Sasuke said. "But that doesn't answer how you managed to arrive just in time to help us when we were attacked by Orochimaru. How did you manage to keep an eye on us as well as your own team, and Team Eight on top of that?"

'That's a good question. I certainly didn't sense him following us,' Sakura thought with alarm. 'The fact that he must have managed it somehow is definitely not good, especially since Sasuke didn't manage to sense him either.'

"Shadow clones," Haku answered in a tone that made it clear he thought the answer obvious. "I made two during the beginning of this test with orders to tail Team Seven and Team Eight respectively and to dispel if you got in trouble." He shrugged. "The one following you did, I got its memories and rushed over here through my mirrors to save you."

"Wait a minute," Sakura objected. "Naruto's never mentioned anything like that and he uses Shadow Clones all the time!" It just didn't seem possible to her. 'Surely even Naruto couldn't miss something like that! He's dumb, but he's not that dumb!' she thought charitably.

"I don't think he's ever used them for recon that I've seen," Sasuke said with a frown. "Just fights… and there've been some freewheeling ones up in the trees where visuals are limited and where he's reacted a little too quick to things he couldn't have seen." He shook his head in dark amusement, "This dumbass lets his blood get so riled up when fighting he never even noticed. He probably just wrote it off as his sixth sense giving him a premonition."

'Well, maybe he is that dumb.' Sakura thought, staring at Naruto in exasperation.

"I guess that explains why he didn't have a screen of shadow clones out doing recon earlier, I was wondering about that." Haku said with mild astonishment. Then he went still for a second, eyes darting to the right. "Looks like we've got company."

'Dammit! Why can't we catch a break!' Sakura raged to herself, while Sasuke merely grunted and became somehow looser, looking even more on the verge of springing into violent action than he usually did.

Haku's hand reached out and touched the ground in front of him, frosting it over and forming a small mirror of ice there. A second mirror must have formed off in the distance behind the intruders, since Sakura could see an image of the three Sound Ninja who were participating in the exam. They seemed unaware they were being spied on, as they themselves spied on Team Seven through the brush.

"What should we do?" Sakura asked in a hushed tone. "I don't know anything about their village. Do you?"

Haku shook his head, "No." Then he got down on his elbows and put his ear to the mirror, listening for just a few moments, before his eyes widened and he raised back up. "They're attacking at daybreak on the orders of Orochimaru."

"I'll take care of them," Sasuke said in that darkly cool fashion of his. " You two keep an eye on Naruto."

'And my eyes on Haku?' Sakura wondered. 'What does he expect me to do in the unlikely event he's up to something?'

"Three enemies, abilities unknown, you shouldn't go in alone." Haku said skeptically.

"They're unlikely to be near your level if Orochimaru thought it necessary to enter this exam himself," Sasuke replied. "And even if they are, for my own growth I need to be able to do this. In that fight with Orochimaru I activated my Sharingan for the first time. Whatever abilities they have won't be able to stand against that."

'CHA! Sasuke's amazing!' Sakura cheered inwardly.

"Rash, too rash." Haku shook his head in disapproval. "That's going to get you killed long before you track down your brother, and even if it doesn't, you won't survive finding him."

"What the hell do you know about my brother!?" Sasuke growled taking a step forward, fists clenched and trembling. Sakura shivered with a mix of fear and desire, 'he's so intense!'

Haku looked at him askance from the corner of his eyes, somehow seeming to keep his attention on Sasuke and his little mirror at the same time. "I've learned a lot working for my master Jiraiya. Itachi isn't the lone wolf you'd expect. He travels with a rogue ninja from Kiri just as strong as he and they supposedly work for an organization filled with a dozen more missing nin just as strong. Who they are… and what their goals are, nobody knows for sure; but even if you surpass Itachi and match Uchiha Madara himself in strength, going up against them alone is suicide."

Face pale, black eyes wide, Sasuke looked stunned by the news. "That's…that's impossible," he stammered out. "Itachi working with a partner? For a whole organization? It can't be. He's just too psychotic and unstable."

Haku shrugged, "He's hardly inconspicuous and his partner even less so. There might not be anyone in the world as recognizable at a glance as Hoshigaki Kisame. He's two meters tall with blue skin, and has gills and teeth like a shark."

'Ugh, gross! That's makes Zabuza seem normal in comparison.' Sakura grimaced. 'All he had was the teeth and shaved eyebrows.'

Sasuke on the other hand didn't seem to be taking the news so well. He was running his hands through his black locks like he wanted to tear them out. He gritted his teeth and shook his head slowly, "if it's suicidal so be it, as long I succeed."

"Which you're not likely to." Haku commented, dismissing his mirror with a sweep of his hand. Sakura supposed he didn't want to push his luck and give the Sound ninja a chance to detect it.

Sasuke glared at him, snarl warping his face. "Would you have me do nothing," he demanded.

"No, I know that's not an option for you." Haku seemed vexed by the admission. "What you could do is look beyond yourself and avail yourself of the assets available to you as your brother has done.

"What assets? I'm all the clan has left." Sasuke said, a plaintive note entering his voice.

"Hatake Kakashi is the third strongest shinobi of the Leaf after Jiraiya and the Hokage himself." Haku spoke slowly as if speaking to a small child. "Naruto's potential equals your own and I've already gone over the path Sakura can take towards power. Eventually you'll have a team that can take on any two ninja alive, you just need to give it time. Just three or four years," he appealed. "Itachi's young, he's not going anywhere. Train, research, plot and plan, have a few kids so that the Uchiha clan doesn't die with you if you fail." He turned to look at Sakura, "Not with you. You're too young, it would damage your health and career."

Sakura was ablaze with righteous indignation, 'We'll see about that! No one's going to have Sasuke's babies but me! Yeah!' she thought emphatically.

Sasuke held his face in the palm of his hand, fingernails digging into his forehead, grimacing in pained frustration.

"Don't play his game Sasuke, especially when he's not willing to play by his own rules. If he can accept aid then so can you, especially if it's just to deal with his allies." Haku said.

Sasuke let out a long suffering sigh, letting his hand slide off his face. "I'd hoped that I wouldn't have to put other people at risk…but it looks like he's going to deny me that luxury." He laughed bitterly, "Why should I be surprised, he's denied me every other."

Sakura's heart went out to him. "I'm here for you Sasuke," she said, her mouth dry. "Don't ever forget that."

He rolled his eyes in response. "If you want to be here for me follow Haku's advice and train until you're worthy to be there." He turned dismissively back to the older boy. "Let's come at them from two sides. I'll rush their position and you ambush them from the back through a mirror."

'Jackass!' Sakura seethed. 'How can you stomp on a maiden's heart like that. I'll prove I'm the only one worthy of your love!'

"Sounds good," Haku replied with a nod. "The dark favors us I think. Your eyes will have no problem with it and I'm sure I have much more experience fighting in it than they." It was twilight now and only a dim glow could be seen on the horizon through the trees. Their eyes met for a moment and then Sasuke was gone, blurring into action.

Sakura yearned to let her eyes follow him, but she kept them on Haku. 'It's the right thing to do,' she told herself. She could hear Sasuke shouting for the enemy to "Come out and fight me!" and hear the rush of flames, and see the shadows lit by their glow thrown into the roots of their tree. The very air vibrated as if it had been plucked like the string of a giant electric guitar, a harsh keening sound on the edge of conscious recognition. Then mist condensed out of thin air and froze over in a flash, solidifying into a blue sheet of ice in the blink of an eye. Haku leaped into it and was gone, and the mirror dissolved back into the water from which it came, splattering the ground and leaving it damp. A girl screamed and Sakura spun to look out the opening of the hollow into the darkness, but all that followed was silence.

Eventually there was movement and Sasuke flowed out of the shadows, Haku following him, a sound ninja thrown over each shoulder, a girl over the left and a boy on the right. Sakura gave a start as she realized they didn't seem to be breathing.

"Are they dead?" she asked in confusion.

Haku shook his head, "I put them in a state of false death. It'll leave them weak and ripe for interrogation." He put the girl down and made a sign with one hand, summoning another of his mirrors. "I'm gonna drop these two off with my contact on the border of the forest fence. I'll be back in a couple of minutes." And with that he picked the girl back up and was gone.

Sakura looked away from the crumbling mirror, "the other one?" she asked, wondering about the ninja with the bandaged face.

"Taken care off." Sasuke said in a cold detached voice, looking off in the distance at the Gods' only knew what.

Sakura suppressed a shudder as a chill ran up her spine. 'Just like that, it's so easy for him. Will it ever be that easy for me?' She wondered. 'Do I want it to be?' She knew what her textbooks would say, but she'd long since learned that they had little relation to reality.

The silence between them quickly grew awkward. It was embarrassing. 'I'm embarrassing,' she thought with shame, cheeks reddening as she recalled the casual way he'd put her down and dismissed her before this latest fight. "Sasuke…" she stuttered, something desperate in her voice causing him to turn and look at her with those knowing eyes of his. "I…I promise that I will train…I will follow his advice." Her voice became more sure and firm. "And I won't have to hide behind you and Naruto for protection anymore. I'll catch up to you two and never fall behind again."

Sasuke's face was still. It was obvious he was hiding a reaction, and Sakura knew just what it was, 'he doesn't believe me, or if he does he doesn't believe in me.' she thought in despair. He opened his mouth, "Good," he said and left it at that, turning away to look back at the night. 'It's better than nothing, certainly better than knocking me down. I'll prove him wrong.' She thought with certainty. 'I'm going to become a great kunoichi, and prove to Sasuke that I'm the right woman for him!'

Before the silence could once more become oppressive, Haku arrived, flowing out of a mirror that as always, solidified faster than anyone would expect. Sasuke turned to him, "So, you can take people through those?" he asked.

"I can," Haku nodded, "but unless you have my bloodline I don't recommend it. It's cold enough that it shocked those two into consciousness. Of course, they were too out of it to offer any resistance, but they should have slept for at least half a day. Still, I don't think I took them through enough mirrors to give them frostbite, so they should be alright," he said. Then paused and added, "If they talk to Morino that is."

That last bit put conversation on a damper, as they all seemed to recall his scarred head and the tortures that those two Sound ninjas could end up on the receiving end of. "I'll take first watch," Sakura said, breaking the impasse. She felt exhausted, but knew that the boys had done far more than her.

Sasuke grunted in affirmation, while Haku replied "Good idea." Then he continued, "It looks like you guys should be alright, so I'm going to head on out and rejoin my own team. I wish you three luck on finishing the exam." Then he made yet another mirror and stepped through the watery glass and was gone.

Sakura sighed in annoyance, "He didn't even given me a chance to say goodbye!" But looking at Sasuke's glower she thought, 'Maybe he didn't want to give Sasuke time to think of doing anything rash.' She shook her head at their foolishness, and started looking over the area in preparation for her night's watch. 'Maybe I can set up a few traps while I'm at it…'

* * *

Haku arrived back at the place he'd left his team earlier in the day and quickly picked up their trail. His clone had left him subtle signs that he and Jiraiya used to communicate directions. In little over an hour he'd found them camped out in a little dip in the ground, obscured by boulders thrusting up out of the earth.

His clone and Ino were both still up, while Shikamaru snoozed away. "Haku! What happened to you!" she gasped in horror, taking in his bruised face. "Are you alright?" she asked, running her hands over him in a far too familiar manner.

"I'm fine Ino," he answered, pushing her arms away and dispelling his clone, its memories flowing into him. "You got a scroll!" he said in surprise.

"Yeah!" Ino crowed. "We rescued a pathetic Grass kunoichi from a giant bear and took her scroll as payment. It was an Earth scroll, just what we needed." Then she cocked her head in confusion, "How did you know?"

"The clone, I get it's memories when it dispels. That's how I knew Orochimaru was in the forest of death," he explained. "He was after Sasuke."

"Is he alright!?" Ino demanded, face going pale with worry.

"I managed to get there in time," he replied. "He smacked us around pretty good, but he likes to play with his food and I managed to stall him enough for Jiraiya sensei to arrive and drive him off."

"Thank the Gods," Ino said in relief. Then she paused, "the rest of them are ok too, right? Sakura and Naruto?" Her face colored, and she seemed a little embarrassed she'd forgotten them. Knowing her, she was probably concerned more about Sakura than Naruto, they seemed to have a long history.

"Sakura's fine and Naruto should be up and about in the morning," he answered warmly.

"That's great to hear." Ino said earnestly. "After all I don't want to win Sasuke by default, I need to prove to Sakura that I'm better than her." Somehow, it just didn't sound convincing to Haku. 'She cares,' he thought with a smile.

"I've had a long day," he told her as he sat down, and tried to find a good position to sleep in. "You take this watch, and Shikamaru the second. I'll take the third." He'd barely registered the yes before he was out.

Shikamaru didn't wake him for the third watch. "It's a drag, but I decided you needed the sleep more than me," he'd said when asked why. After that it would have been a relatively simple matter to make for the tower, but they stayed out for a couple more days. Haku needed to rest, and then send out more clones to look after Teams Seven and Eight, while Ino wanted to observe or take out more of the competition. In the end it all came to naught, the first day seeming to have used up this exam's quota for the extreme and unusual. An ocean of blood had been spilled that day, and little more could be drawn from the stone. With everything seeming under control, Team Ten entered the Tower on the fourth night and fell gratefully into soft beds.


	6. The Burden of Risk

Team Ten slept deep and late, waking well after the break of dawn. Teams Seven and Eight both straggled in later that morning, a little more than an hour apart, while it turned out that Team Nine had already been at the tower for a full day.

Gaara's team was already there too, but nobody went near them, and it often seemed as if his own siblings wished they were somewhere else most of the time. 'Not surprising given what I've seen of him,' Haku thought. 'He's a lit explosive tag just waiting to go off.' Thankfully, Gaara did nothing beyond stare at Haku, killing intent leaking from him like a putrid miasma. It was enough to keep everyone on their toes however. 'If he snaps and lashes out here, it'll be difficult to avoid collateral damage,' Haku thought, analyzing the situation. 'The proctors would surely jump in though, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad.'

A bare hour before the three o'clock deadline the last team straggled in. It was Kabuto's team, and he looked strangely unharmed. Even his clothes were in mint condition, as if he had just been through a stroll in the park rather than taking a survival test in the Forest of Death. His partners were in good shape too, not as pristine as Kabuto, but better than most who had reached the tower. The fact that they arrived so late, made their condition all the odder. 'Something just doesn't add up with him, but I'm not sure what,' Haku thought in puzzlement. 'They didn't come into contact with any of my clones, so they couldn't have been up to anything too sinister. Still…I'm not going to let this rest. I'm going to keep my eye on him,' the young ninja resolved.

When three o'clock finally rolled by the Proctor popped into the lobby where they'd been directed to gather. The smoke was still wafting away when she said "Okay maggots, follow me!" in a chipper voice that in no way matched the manic grin on her face. Then she spun around and left through the back door.

With much shrugging of shoulders and grumbling, especially on the part of Shikamaru, the genin followed her. The door led to a long corridor that eventually terminated in a large open room. 'This doesn't bode well,' Haku thought, his eyes running over the room and what looked like platforms on high for viewing spectators. There was an electronic billboard at one end of the room and above the double door they'd just entered was a statue of a shinobi's hands set in a seal.

"It looks like an indoor arena," Shikamaru said with a grimace, putting Haku's concern into words.

"Does that mean we're going to have to fight?" Ino whispered.

"Probably." Haku answered, then put a hand on her shoulder and tried to put her mind at ease. "Don't worry about it though, it'll be safer with a jonin referee on hand than what went on in the Forest." That seemed to reassure her, 'but while that may be true, just because it's safer doesn't mean it's safe. If any of the rookies get paired up with Gaara there's a good chance they'll die before the jonin can do anything.' Mulling it over, he wondered 'do my orders extend to intervening in this kind of match? It would be sacrificing my chance at a promotion, but the mission comes first.' He nodded his head, making his decision. 'Yes, the mission comes first. Especially when the lives of comrades depend on its completion.'

Haku was roused from his thoughts when the Hokage emerged from a door set in the viewing platform on the left. He was followed by Jiraiya, the exam proctors and the jonin sensei of the six teams that had made it to the Tower. Haku and the rest of the genin turned to listen as Anko spoke up, addressing the crowd. "The Lord Hokage will now explain the third test. Listen carefully." Turning to the Hokage she respectfully asked, "If you'd please, Lord Hokage."

"Yes," the Third answered in a voice made gravely by decades of smoking. "But before I explain the third test, there is something that I'd like you all to know. It concerns the true reason behind this exam."

"I thought this was about selecting who becomes chunin." Ino whispered in confusion.

Haku had had all this explained to him by Jiraiya a few years ago, and like his master he could hardly approve of it. 'Sending children to fight and die in the place of adults is disgraceful…but it's just not that simple,' Haku despaired. 'Dozens may die here, but tens of thousands would die in the wars that these exams have prevented, including countless children, both shinobi and civilian.' He shook his head at the insanity of it all. 'Truly only the messiah of the Great Toad Sage's prophecy can heal this corrupt world.'

The Hokage continued, "Why do all the allied nations take their Chunin Exam together?" he asked rhetorically. "This exam's aim is supposedly to promote friendship among nations and to raise the quality of shinobi, but I don't want you to be confused by its true meaning." He paused, "It true purpose is to serve as a replacement for war among allied countries."

"What does that mean?" asked a Konoha kunoichi in a pink shirt, with her hair up in twin buns. Most of the other genin looked equally perplexed.

"If you look back in history, our current allies were enemies of ours, and of each other, who fought over who would rule this world," The Third explained, looking down at the small crowd with a grave expression on his face. "In order to prevent wasteful fighting and needless effusion of blood, the stage that these nations chose for battle was the Chunin Exams. That is their real origin."

"Why the hell do we have to do that crap?" Naruto burst out. "Isn't this thing for deciding who gets to be a chunin?"

The Hokage grinned, teeth clenched tightly around the long stem of his pipe. "It is a fact that this exam decides who is worthy of chunin rank. But if you look underneath the underneath, this exam has another side entirely. One where each nation's shinobi risk their own lives to protect their land's prestige."

"Prestige?" Ino asked, speaking loudly enough for the Hokage to hear.

"Yes. World leaders and many rich and influential individuals will be watching you fight in these exams. If a Hidden Village shows surprising strength or unexpected weakness, then they will gain or lose clients respectively and the standing of their nation will similarly rise or fall. In this way a Hidden Village can send a message to their potential enemies."

"Yeah, but why!?" Kiba loudly objected. "Why do we have to risk our lives in battle?"

'Not too smart this one,' Haku thought wryly. 'It's all there, in all of its naked brutality.'

The Hokage's visage took a grimmer turn, looking down upon them with an eagle eyed glare. "The strength of the country is synonymous with the strength of its village, and the strength of the village is synonymous with the strength of its shinobi. A true shinobi's strength is born only through life risking battle. This exam is a way to learn how strong other countries are, and to show off your own strength without resorting to skirmishes that could lead to full blown war. It only has meaning because lives are at stake." He lectured on, continuing in a serious tone. "That's why those that have come before you have fought in the Chunin Exam for this meaningful dream."

"But then why…do you says things like it being about friendship?" the girl in pink with the buns asked, bewilderment clear in her voice.

"I told you in the beginning," he replied, "I don't want you to confuse the purpose of this exam. Losing life and establishing balance… that is the true shape of friendship in the ninja world."

'Well that certainly took the wind out of their sails,' Haku thought as he looked over the younger genin, their faces full of dismay and disillusionment.

The Hokage's face grew even more intense, "Before the third exam begins I will tell you one more thing. This is not just a test. This is a life risking battle with your dreams and your country's prestige on the line."

'Shikamaru looks less than inspired by that,' Haku noticed with amusement, 'but Ino and some of the others are starting to feel the pressure.' Sweat was beading on her forehead, and she looked deep in thought over what she'd just heard.

"I get it." Naruto said, arms crossed and looking determined.

"I don't care what it's about," Gaara coldly interjected, "just tell us what this life risking battle entails."

"Yes," the Hokage replied. "I'd like to now explain the third exam, but…"

A skinny jonin flickered down to the floor before them. He had a sickly pallor to his face and his eyes were rimmed with dark bags that made it seem as if he hadn't slept in a week. He spoke up, "Actually…", before breaking off into a wracking cough.

Most of the genin looked at him with skepticism, likely wondering if he should have been in a hospital. Haku on the other hand had a different reaction, 'He can't be as sick as he looks,' he thought. 'He's probably trying to make people underestimate him. If he is sick, he's using chakra to reinforce his body and make himself mission capable.'

"I apologize Lord Hokage," the sick looking man said upon getting his cough under control. "From here on as the referee…will you please allow me, Hayate Gekkou, to take over."

The Hokage nodded his head, "By all means."

"Greetings, I am Hayate." He gave a rough wet cough, "Umm…Before the third test, there's something I want you to do. Umm…It's a preliminary for the third test, to decide who gets to participate in the main event."

"Preliminary?" Sakura asked in surprise.

"What's the point?" Shikamaru asked loudly, clearly annoyed that his premonition had been right. "Wasn't the Forest of Death enough? I thought the people who passed the second test got to take part in the third?"

"Umm…Because the first and second tests may have been too easy this year." Hayate answered glumly, ignoring the looks of outrage he got from his audience. "We have a bit too many people remaining."

"But sensei, there are only eighteen of us," Sakura objected, "why can't we all participate?"

"By chunin exam rules, when the number of competitors is over twelve we must have a preliminary round to reduce the number of contestants by half," Hayate explained. "As the Lord Hokage stated, there will be many important guests coming to watch the third test. Their time is valuable, and since some of the fights last a long time we are limited in the amount of participants we can allow to compete."

"No way." Sakura moaned, "that's so unfair."

"Well, that's life," Hayate said bluntly, pausing to giving a rasping cough. "Umm…So anyways…Those of you in bad shape…Those with injuries and such, who can't continue on, please step forward now. Otherwise, we will begin the preliminaries immediately."

There was a flurry of objections to that, the loudest of them from Kiba, but they quickly died down when Kabuto stepped forward, a sad smile on his face. "I've got some internal bleeding that needs looking at, I can't fight with it, so I need to quit."

"Umm…You're Kabuto Yakushi right?" Hayate asked, looking at a clipboard that doubtless held pictures with their names. "You can leave, the medical bay is back through that door. Just go down the hall and take the first left." He motioned with his head to a door set in the back of the room.

Haku eyed Kabuto suspiciously. 'Looks a little pale, but otherwise completely fine.'

"Uh…Does anyone else wish to bow out?" Hayate asked as he coughed into a hand. "You're going to be fighting one on one matches from now on if that helps. Just step forward or raise your hand." He looked over them with a seemingly apathetic gaze, but no one moved. "Guess no one else is retiring. Let's begin." He coughed, a damp, rattling cough. "Umm...This preliminary consists of simple one on one fights. You will fight as if you were actually in a real life confrontation. Umm…we have seventeen contestants, so someone's going to luck out and get a free pass."

"What!?" Naruto yelled in outrage.

"Umm…we'll, were going to have eight matches, with two genin chosen by random. The winners will qualify to compete in the third test. That'll leave one genin left over who'll get to advance without fighting." Hayate answered lethargically, looking like he was halfway to just keeling over. "Like I told pinky, life isn't fair."

Sakura scowled at that, while Ino laughed and then got that glare turned on her for good measure. Haku shook his head in amusement, a small smile on his face. Sometimes he wished he could have gone to the academy, been on a genin team and forged friendships and rivalries like a normal child. 'But then I wouldn't have spent the last eight years with Sensei, and his many flaws aside, I wouldn't give that up for the world.'

Hayate, droned on, pausing every so often to hack out a wheezing cough. "There are no rules, anything goes. The fight will continue on until one of you dies, gives up or is knocked unconscious. So, umm…if you don't want to die, then quickly admit your defeat." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "However…we don't want people to die pointlessly, so if I decide that a fight has been won…I'll jump in and end it. My decisions are final."

Hayate cocked his head and glanced up at the electronic scoreboard. "This is the thing that will determine your destiny. It will show two names, randomly selected to participate in each battle. Umm…this might be a bit sudden, but let's get on with it." He looked up at Mitarashi, "Announce the first names!" he called.

The tension was palpable as the small crowd of genin looked up at the flashing screen, as names scrolled by in a blur. They slowed, and then stopped at Uchiha Sasuke vs. Kankurō. The raven haired boy just smirked, while the ninja from Hidden Sand gave him a cruel looking grin.

"Do your best Sasuke!" Sakura and Ino chirped in chorus, precipitating another glaring contest between them.

"Don't you dare lose you bastard," Naruto said enthusiastically with a wide cheeky smile. "I want to meet you in the finals in front of everyone and prove I'm just as good a ninja as you!"

"Dream on dumbass." Sasuke snorted. But he added, "Don't you lose either. I'm looking forward to our next fight." The gratified look on Naruto's face indicated there was a lot more going on beneath the surface of that exchange then it appeared.

'I guess that means Naruto has finally gained Sasuke's acknowledgment.' Haku thought, 'Good for him, he deserves it.'

Hayate cut through the chatter with a loud hacking cough, and then started issuing instructions "Alright…let's begin the first match. Everyone except Sasuke and Kankurō, please move to the upper level."

Haku flickered to the upper level, and the rest of the genin followed more conventionally. He'd taken a good position in the center, where he could look down on the starting point and still have a good view of any part of the arena. 'Looks like these two are raring to go already,' Haku thought as he watched the two boys exchange words.

"Pretty confident aren't we?" Kankurō mocked.

Sasuke grunted, "Hn…I've had a rough week, so I'm going to finish this quick. If you don't want to die or get hurt bad, then quit." He certainly looked the part, despite three days worth of rest he was clearly nursing bruises and some nasty facial abrasions.

"Then I'll end this quick myself." Kankurō shot back, taking the wrapped up bundle off his back and setting it down dramatically with a thump.

'This kid doesn't seem to know how formidable the sharingan really is!' Haku realized. 'Sauske's going to be able to see his chakra strings.'

"Let's begin the first match" Hayate ordered casually.

Sasuke jumped back, red eyes whirling, a sly grin spreading across his face.

"He's seen it, this match is done." Haku pronounced with finality. Kankurō's sister snorted derisively at that from her place down towards the left wall, but the rookies that had gathered around him took him seriously.

"What do you mean?" Shikamaru asked skeptically, eyes narrowed as he focused on the goings on in the arena. Ino and Sakura surprisingly didn't comment, but a quick glance proved them riveted on the display, knuckles white as they clenched the railing.

"Just watch, it won't take long." Haku answered cryptically. 'Teasing these kids really is fun,' he thought as Shikarmaru grimaced at that answer. 'They can go far, but they really need to learn to see underneath the underneath.' His attention was drawn back to the arena.

"Can all you do is run away?" Kankurō taunted at Sasuke who'd withdrawn almost all the way to the back wall and stayed there.

"Why don't you come after me then?" Sasuke shot back with an arrogant smirk.

Kankurō snarled and let go of his bundle, which dropped to the floor as he rushed forward. Sasuke didn't move, staying still until the last moment. 'What's he doing…?' Haku wondered, amazed that Sasuke was cutting it so close.

Poof! There was a puff of smoke and Hayate was there! He desperately drew two kunai to deflect the blades emerging from Kankurō's, no, his puppet's palms! "He substituted with the proctor!" Haku gasped in surprise as his eyes flicked over to the middle of the arena where Hayate had been, and where the bundle which must be concealing the real Kankurō still was. The Sand ninja was jumping up, shedding the wrappings with a spin.

It was too late. A fireball was rolling from Sasuke's mouth. Not as big as the one's Haku had seen him use in the forest but big enough to set those twirling bandages aflame. Kankurō was out of them, diving towards the floor, rolling to put out the flames on his smoldering black suit. His puppet was rushing back to his aid, but Sasuke was all over him, landing on his back with a leaping axe kick as Kankurō jumped up to escape, sending him crashing back down to the floor where Sasuke placed a kunai at his neck.

"Winner, Uchiha Sasuke!" the proctor proclaimed with annoyance. Sasuke backed off with a smile dripping with superiority while Kankurō leveraged himself off the floor with a scowl.

"What! He cheated!" shouted his sister in annoyance, pointing at Hayate accusingly. "You assisted him!"

Hayate looked up her with a half formed frown and drooping eyes. "He simply substituted with the only convenient target in the arena," he replied, pausing to cough. "Umm…I just defended myself. Still, I don't want to be shish kabobed or set on fire or anything, so if anyone else does that they'll be disqualified."

"That's a complete load of shit!" the blond girl exclaimed, looking like she was just getting started. She quieted though when her sensei put a hand on her shoulder and whispered something into her ear. With the angle and his veil Haku couldn't tell what.

It wasn't long before the two contestants were up on the observation platform. The loser being comforted by his sister, while the winner was being fawned over. Naruto barely managed to get out "Nice job Sasuke," before being elbowed aside by Sakura and Ino, who themselves nearly came to blows. 'He looks like he'd rather be back down in the arena.' Haku grinned in amusement.

"Announce the second match!" Hayate called, and the attention of the crowd turned towards the scoreboard.

The digital screen flashed the next match, and Haku's grin slid off his face while his stomach sank like a rock. In garish neon yellow the names read 'Yuki Haku vs. Gaara'.

The young Sand shinobi flickered to the floor in a swirl of sand. "Get down here," he demanded, glaring up at his opponent with black rimmed eyes.

Haku took a deep breath and vaulted the balcony, jumping down to the floor below. He flinched on landing, bruised muscles aching from the beating he'd taken at the hands of his sensei's rogue teammate. 'This is going to be every bit as dangerous as that fight with Orochimaru, maybe more,' he thought. Gaara's massacre of the Rain ninja and the brief skirmish between him and the jinchuriki played through his head as he furiously went over his options.

'The terrain completely favors him as is, he can use his sand to corner me in this little box of an arena and bury me alive. There's really only one option, I pull this off and kill him in one shot or he'll crush me,' he thought grimly as they lined up across from each other. 'Killing him will probably have political consequences, but looking at those eyes, I doubt Gaara will accept a forfeit.' They were wild, glowing with a golden light as a maniacal grin started to spread across the red head's face. "There's no river to save you now," he taunted. "I'm going to bathe Mother in your blood."

Hayate lifted his arm, "Second Match of the preliminaries, begin!"

Haku bounded backwards to gain distance, hands flashing into the snake seal, 'Exploding Water Shockwave!' He vomited a crushing torrent of water, waves crashing against the walls of the arena with bone crushing force, filling it to the brim like a bathtub in what seemed the blink of an eye.

Gaara leapt high, just avoiding the crest of the crashing wave that cracked the stone where he'd stood. Spinning in the air he was enveloped by a massive shroud of sand that quickly morphed into a sphere that hovered above the settling waters. A small tendril broke loose, forming a glaring eye.

Haku rode the crashing waves as easily as a sailor would a deck in the calmest sea. He gave a small jerk of surprise at Gaara's gravity defying escape, but as the waters calmed underneath him he shouted "Not good enough!" One half seal later and the entire surface of the impromptu lake flash froze and great, thick spears of ice erupted from it, the ice stronger than steel with tips sharp as broken glass. They tore apart the floating orb in a spray of blood and sand. Splattered flesh and viscera dripping with wet clumps of red stained sand hung on spikes of ice five meters long.

Gaara didn't even have time to scream, but the agonized shriek of his sister as she screamed her brother's name was heartrending, cutting through all the other exclamations of shock and disgust from the watching crowd. 'I'm going to remember that scream for a long, long time,' Haku thought sadly turning to look up at Temari, her face wet with tears, her brother and jonin sensei next to her with their mouths agape in stunned surprise.

There was a thump behind him as Hayate jumped out on the ice, "The winner is," he started to say before cutting off.

Haku felt an unbelievable vile chakra surge into being behind him, a seething mass of hatred and bloodlust that eclipsed even that of Orochimaru in the Forest of Death. He whipped around to stare in horror at the bloodstained remnants of Gaara's dismembered corpse. The larger chunks had mostly slid down to the base of the spikes, but the spears themselves still shined crimson, sticky and wet. A roiling mass of golden chakra was welling up, struggling to take shape, the visage of a snarling tanuki's flickering in and out. "You bitch!" it screamed. "Dying hurts so fucking much! When I finally manage to claw myself out of hell I'm gonna hunt you down and tear you limb from limb you little bastard!"

The air seemed to crack behind it, tearing open unto a terrible nothingness, deep and black and unending. Just looking at it felt incredibly wrong, but Haku couldn't tear his eyes away. Shukaku was pulled shrieking into the void, golden claws tearing fiery rents in the air as it struggled to resist. "I'll kill you!" he howled, "I'll devour your living entrails! I'll," he was cut off abruptly as he was completely sucked into the void and the tear in reality snapped shut.

"What the hell was that!?" yelled Naruto. The rest of the genin wore various looks of stunned horror, while their jonin sensei's looked merely disturbed by the scene and concerned for their charges. Haku supposed witnessing the Nine Tails attack on the village inured one against a lesser creature like Shukaku.

"That was Shukaku, the One Tailed Tanuki," Haku said dully, staring ahead at the blood splattered ice. That close to a chakra like that, feeling all of its rage and hate, was an experience he was still shaking off. "Senju Hashirama, the first Hokage, gifted it decades ago to Suna and now it has returned."

"Why would anyone even want it?" asked an appalled Sakura. Naruto flinched and looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Haku wondered if any of the other genin noticed it; he didn't think so, all their eyes seemed focused on him. 'It's just one more piece of evidence that backs my theory on why the villagers hate the boy,' he thought. 'Though with the malevolent chakra I felt from him when he fought Orochimaru, the case is all but iron clad.'

'Still, that's neither here nor there.' Haku flicked his eyes up to the Hokage and Jiraiya, unsure whether to answer Sakura's question. The Hokage looked for a second as if he were going to speak, but Jiraiya placed a hand on his sensei's arm. The Hokage cocked an eyebrow at that and his mouth closed. A slight nod from his sensei gave Haku permission to speak what he knew.

Haku turned to face Sakura. "The sealing techniques left to the Hidden Leaf by the Uzumaki Clan of Hidden Eddy are far more powerful than those known by the Hidden Sand," he explained. Naruto gave a visible start at that news. "With them the Lord Hokage and Lord Jiraiya will be able to easily subdue the spirit once it reincorporates in a years' time and bind it into a child of their choosing." There were a few gasps at that in the crowd, and Naruto in particular looked like he was about to vomit, but Haku went on. "However, unlike poor Gaara, whoever they pick will be protected from the beast's influence by our superior seals and remain a sane and productive shinobi."

"Completely unacceptable!" Baki objected sharply, seeming to recover from his shock. "Shukaku must be returned to the Hidden Sand once he reappears. To do otherwise would completely upset the balance of power." Even the genin could read the threat underneath that. An uneasy tension settled over the room as the stakes rose far higher than who would become chunin and who would not.

"One accepts certain risks when one brings a jinchuriki to a Chunin Exam in a foreign nation." The Hokage said chidingly. "Their death is one of them, and now that that has come to pass the burden of risk shifts upon us."

"What do you mean?" Baki questioned, his rough voice filled with suspicious.

"Despite Haku's confidence in me, subduing and sealing a tailed demon is not so easy as he makes out. The death of Konoha jonin and ANBU operatives in such a battle is more likely than not. And having suffered such losses, how can we then sacrifice the advantage they died for?"

"While such losses would of course be highly regrettable," Baki said respectfully, "the fact remains that by the terms of the alliance treaty between us you must return the demon to the Hidden Sand. Perhaps we can provide you with assistance in subduing the beast and thus share that risk."

"The clause you speak of is in regards to aiding you if the demon is killed or stolen by a third party," the Hokage argued. "We've hardly stolen it, nor are we a third party, and in any case treaties can be renegotiated." Baki's face grew angrier with every word, but the Hokage went on. "I hear the Kazekage is deeply concerned by the fact that many citizens of the Wind Country are taking advantage of Konoha's lower prices. It's had a substantial effect on your finances. Surely an agreement could be worked out were we agree that Suna would have precedent in such cases."

"I highly doubt that will be an acceptable tradeoff," Baki sneered. "We will see what the Kazekage has to say to such an…offer." It was clear that he thought the prospect was dead on arrival.

"We should discuss this latter, in more detail and in privacy. Once this preliminary is finished I invite you to dinner at my estate. The most prominent members of the jonin council and the shinobi clans will be there," the Hokage offered politely.

Visibly forcing down his rage, Baki formally accepted. "It would be an honor Lord Hokage."

The Hokage nodded, "I will see you at seven then." Shifting to address Haku, he politely said "Thaw out this ice and drain the water, please. I'm sure everyone would like to finish this stage of the exam as soon as possible."

"As you command Lord Hokage." Haku answered, taking in the frozen room with a frown. 'This might take a while.'

* * *

Author's Note - I wrote these six chapters together and that's how I was able to update this story so quickly. It'll be a few weeks before I can post the next two to three chapters. In the meantime I'd appreciate any reviews you care to give, whether critical or not. I'm especially interested in the response to the Sakura POV from chapter 5. Thanks for reading, and be assured that coming chapters will diverge even further from canon.


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